Saturday I didn't want to listen to any of the tracks in my Mp3 player, so I put on the radio instead. I flipped through all my programmed stations, including Z 95.3, although I didn't listen for long. Little did I know, that saturday was Z's second-last day on the air. Tuesday morning at work, I saw an article in the paper talking about how their ratings had slid by about three quarters, parially because The Beat took some of their audience, partially because they couldn't shake their image as being a station for people aged 13-20. Makes sense I guess, I loved it when I was 13, I even had a Z95.3 hooded t-shirt from Off the Wall (maybe I'll find a pic of it to put on Facebook.) These days I prefer News 1130(totally bogus that my Mp3 player doesn't get am... dork that I am...), and yet I couldn't help but feel a little sad, I guess I never realized how much I loved that station back in the day. As it turned out, Z went off the air sunday, and tuesday it came back with a new format. It seems like every time a station changes format they go to "easy listening", because coma patients need their variety I guess, so I was a little concerned that we were about to get a new sleepy station. I wanted to listen to it on my breaks, but I had forgotten my Mp3 player at home, so I had to wait. And then I forgot.

So I just looked for their website tonight, and Z95.3 is now 95 Crave. Judging by the pink and white and powder blue page they got going, I'd say their targeting girls. They promise to play “Music That Moves You”. Definitely girly. Let's see what they play (they have a listing of their last 10 songs, so you don't even have to tune in): Enrique Iglesias, Bryan Adams, Ricky Martin, Justin Timberlake, Fergie, Nelly Furtado... Yes, it's technically their upbeat stuff so it isn't easy listening, but the whole damn thing turned into Barbie's Party Mix.

At least we still have Yorkies. That reminds me, if a girl gets food poisoning from a Yorkie, is the company still liable, given that the wrapper clearly indicates that it's not for her?

Ever since I saw that video of Triumph the comic dog making fun of people in line to see Attack of the Clones, I wondered how well it would go over if he were to make fun of people in line to watch a hockey game. I mean really, what's the difference between dressing like Obi-Wan Kenobi to watch Star Wars, and wearing a jersey with an athlete's name and number on it for a game, when you aren't even on the team? It's the same thing really, it's just fun to get dressed up all fancy and share the enthusiasm of your peers. Some people might say "Yeah, but Star Wars isn't real," which is true, but then again, the movies themselves are real, even if what they show is fictional. And by the way, how real is a hockey game? Yes, those people on the ice are being themselves, and the competition between the athletes is genuine, but how real is the inter-city rivalry for the spectators? When the Canucks aren't playing the Flames, do the citizens of Vancouver have a reason to hate those of Calgary? Yet if the Canucks win a game against the flames, the next day people in BC say "WE beat Calgary," whether or not they live in Vancouver or play for the Canucks. If anything, Star Wars fans have a firmer grip on reality, since they never say "WE totally blew up the Death Star!"

Anyway, the Canucks, or at least their owners/advertisers, are having an "ultimate fan" contest, and now there's pictures of all sorts of dorks plastered up in the Skytrain stations. I've yoinked an image from that contest (which is disturbingly full of infants being indoctrinated into Fandom, obviously with parents hoping to win by cuteness factor), and slapped together a Geeks Anti-Defamation League propaganda poster:

Last weekend was my weekend to work, and around 2am I woke up to the call of nature. Shuffling to the bog, I usually don't remember what day it is, only whether or not I have to go to work. But for some reason, I remembered it was November 11th. And even though I hate waking up to go to the bathroom, even though I knew I wouldn't get enough sleep, even though I didn't want to go to work that day, my primary thought was "Thank god I'm not waking up on a battlefield." Or, for that matter, on a landing craft on my way to get slaughtered on the beach, or in some cess pit of a trench, crawling with lice.

I don't mind working on Rememberance day, because for me it's a day about thought, not relaxing or celebrating. And even though I'm opposed to conscription, and even though I dread wars (but to be honest, no-one in their right mind considers war to be a good thing, even history buffs and antique enthusiasts), rememberance day is about the soldiers on the front line who fell, not the politicians on the very back line who decide when the wars start and stop. All soldiers choose to fight. Even the conscripted ones who stay, have chosen to do what they consider their civic duty. These brave people throughout history and even now have chosen to fight and die for what they believe in, and whether or not you support the war they fight in or the reasons behind it, the soldiers themselves deserve respect for their resolve, and their will to live by their beliefs, as too few people do.

In case you haven't noticed, I've got a whole bunch of Star Wars stuff on my plate right now. My Jedi costume is almost half done, I'll be shopping for lightsaber parts soon, the last three DVDs come out next tuesday, and although I'll have to wait for Amazon to ship them to me, I have my plug-in TV game to keep me occupied untill then, my collector's box is effectively just waiting to be printed, and Jenn even has a coworker who wants to start up a D20 game with us.

Naturally, this has gotten my mind whirring. I've come to wonder about Luke and Leia's extended family. In episode 2, there are some deleted scenes set the the home of Padme's family, and her parents and siblings are introduced. Padme's parents are seen again at the end of episode 3 in her funeral procession.* So what happened to Padme's family? According to Wookieepedia, her sister has two daughters, one of which represented the sector in the early years of the Empire, meaning Luke and Leia have cousins. The question is, how would they know? As far as I can see, there were only four people who knew that Padme was Luke and Leia's mother; Obi-Wan Kenobi, Bail Organa, Yoda, and R2D2. Owen and Beru Lars might have known, and if they weren't told, they may have guessed from the time that Anakin and Padme stayed with them. Unfortunately, all these people were dead by the end of episode 6, except for R2D2 who knows everything and says nothing. The question then becomes, would any of them have told Luke and Leia bofore they died? It's pretty safe to assume Yoda and Obi-Wan didn't. They could have revealed the information after they'd died, but they both came from a background in which family contact was taboo, for either immediate or extended family, so I don't see why they would even think to volunteer the identity of Luke and Leia's mother. As for Owen and Beru, even if they did know that Padme was Luke's mother, since they lied about Luke's father, it stands to reason that they'd lie to Luke about his mother's identity as well. That leaves Bail Organa.

As a brief aside, how close was Bail to Padme before he adopted her daughter? We only really see them interact during the emergency meeting of the senate in episode 3, but again, if you watch the deleted scenes, there are several segments in which Padme, Bail, Mon Mothma (who apparently used to be some kind of hot, red-headed scifi schoolmarm looking woman), and a character played by George Lucas's daughter, set up the organization that eventually becomes the rebellion. As it turns out, Padme had worked closely with Bail and Mon Mothma. I'm sure that Bail would have told Leia eventually, but I'm willing to bet that when he died on Alderaan, he was still waiting for the right time to come. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if he had told Mon Mothma, if only to fill her in on Leia's importance by lineage, and to underscore what they would be training Leia up for.

My conclusion, then, is that if Luke and Leia were to learn who their mother was, it would be through Mon Mothma. I think that once it got out that Luke and Leia were brother and sister, and that Anakin/Vader was their father, Mon Mothma would pull Leia aside some time and reveal that her mother was Padme Amidala, who I think Leia would recognize as one of the movers and shakers of the old republic. From there, it would be an easy matter to go to Naboo and find relatives of its most famous queen.**

The final question I have is, if what I've surmised is true, would Luke and Leia take Anakin's ashes to Naboo to be interred with Padme's remains?*** They might do it for sentimental reasons, but they might not for fear of how Padme's family and the people of Naboo might react to having Darth Vader interred with Padme Amidala. That conflict might actually make for an interesting story, except that if it was written in an official capacity, you know there would be all sorts of blaster fights and explosions inserted into what should really be a chick-story about self discovery, family ties, and all that other junk, and either way, it would probably suck. Mind you, it might be cool as one of those anime-dramas. Star Wars: Naboo Homecoming, or How To Make Girls Like Star Wars and Make Nerds Like Emotions. Hey, it couldn't be any worse than the Ewok movies, could it? Maybe Chewbacca could punch Jar Jar in the face or something, then the fan boys would buy it no matter what it was.

* Padme's death makes me wonder how Leia can remember her, but that's a different kettle of fish. My guess is that Leia's vague memories are actually force visions from dreams, like the ones Anakin had in episodes 2 and 3. He also mentioned prophetic dreams in episode 1, in which he was a Jedi and freed all the slaves, but that one didn't come true. If someone had reminded him of this in episode 3, maybe he wouldn't have been so spastic about his dreams of Padme's death. All these dreams make Anakin's tone poem from the episode 1 TV spots more foreshadowing, as well as a little more chilling, I think.



** Do you think that the fact that only women could be elected royalty on Naboo was what made Palpatine into such a power hungry megalomaniac? It's strange what sexism can do to some people.



*** Assuming they didn't just scatter to the four winds on Endor. Not my idea of a great final resting place.

Yessir, work gets pretty boring sometimes. This time I started randomly thinking about word alchemy, a game from elementary school. The idea is that you start with the word lead, and turn it into the word gold. You can only change one letter at a time, and every time you change a letter, the new word that the previous word changes into has to be a word that can be found in the dictionairy. The classic solution for turning lead into gold is:

lead
load
goad
gold

But this conclusion was found for me, so I'd never bothered to come up with my own. ( Here's a whole bunch of stuff I did up while the machine was running (contains profanity, for those of you who mind such things). )

Well, I've decided to make a contest out of it. Whoever has the longest or shortest transformation sequence for each pair of words will get their own personal beer set aside for them at the Labour Day TBQ on Sept 3rd. If anyone submits the same transformation sequence that I have already made at this point, I'll give out an extra prize. If one is the same, Jenn and I will rent the movie of your choice to watch with you. If two are the same, we'll rent the movie of your choice to watch with you and prepare you a four course meal. If all three are the same, we'll do all of the above and provide wine as well.

The idea is to make Luke Skywaker into less of a wimp (I'm sorry, did you expect it to not be geeky?). This means giving him a role model to emulate, and who better than Captain Kirk? Although first we'll have to prove that Star Wars and Star Trek are compatable. And just in case all those over-the-head-double-hammer-fists that Luke's going to start throwing tempt him over to the dark side, we'd better be sure we can turn a sith into a jedi. In other words:

1: Turn "trek" into "wars"
2: Turn "luke" into "kirk"
3: Turn "sith" into "jedi"

Post your entries as responses to this blog entry. Change only one letter at a time, all words used except ones I've given have to be real words. You aren't allowed to use people's names (like Cedric), non-english words (like vache), fictional words (like ewok), or acronyms of any type (like CRA), but you CAN use the names of places (like Ghana), currencies (like schilling), languages (like gaelic) or items (like sushi), which might all be found in at least an online dictionairy. And, obviously, no made up words like "xquj". Contest closes when the TBQ starts.

So, if God made Adam out of clay, shouldn't we be silicone-based life forms? It would be better if the bible said that God made Adam out of wet graphite.

Jenn and I picked up Firefly a while ago, and we've been steadily making our way through it. One thing I've noticed is a similarity between one of the characters on Firefly, and one from another show she insisted on picking up:








Anyone else see it?

And for those of you who care, check out this Lego model of Serenity.

Well, I've been three cubed for about a week and a half. When I was one to the power of one I couldn't count, and when I was two squared I certainly didn't know what exponents were. This is the first time I've been able to appreciate being an integer raised to the power of itself. Unfortunately, it will be the last. I find this kind of disappointing. I spent most of my celebration time on the 10th of this month looking at garbage on the internet. Here's some of the stuff I've run across, as well as some stuff I've wanted to share for a while:

First, to start you off gently, an amusing webcomic featuring Grimlock.

Happy belated Valentine's, everybody!

At long last, this image finally explains the mysterious and un-nameable appeal of Vampirella.

I went looking for optical illusions, and found many like this. Then I found this one, which I had to download and look at in an image editor because I just couldn't believe it. Finally, this seems like an optical illusion, but it isn't. It affected my eyes for several days.

Last but not least, some videos. First, in response to Jhayne's fire-breathing fat Japanese guy in a gold cape, please enjoy this Iowa woman in a gold track suit rapping an ode to jem sweaters.

I was going to write a big introduction about how awful this next video is, but I'll let it speak for itself. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present Gunther on the Prowl for Cheap Whores, attempting to make his "Ding Dong" Sound Sexy.

Does your brain hurt? Are your eyes bleeding? This will take away the pain, at least it did for me.

Who likes math? Everyone, of course! That's why it sometimes happens to me when I'm bored at work. A couple days ago I was thinking about how my wedding cake had been cut. An inner circle was cut, and the inner circle and outer wheel shapes were sliced into pieces (Fig. 1).



I began to wonder how wide the inner circle would have to be in relation to the outer circle (Fig. 2) for the pieces to all have the same volume. First I made the simplification that the cake was a uniform height, meaning as long as the surface areas were all the same, the volumes would be too. Next I decided that the outer wheel could be cut into twice as many pieces as the inner circle, meaning it has to have twice the surface area (Fig. 3). Phrased as a problem:

Given that: Ab=2Aa
Solve for: Ra as a function of R

( Here's my solution )
Okay, that wasn't fun. How about something easier?

One of these things does not belong here,
One of these things is not the same.
One of these things does not belong here,
Now it's time to play our game!

Beef
Chicken
Pencil Sharpener

Cthulhu
Godzilla
A box of tissues

Gort
Torg
The Tin Woodsman

Scantily clad, skinny girls doing (supposedly) sexy gyrations under flashing lights
Drum machine dance beats
Polka

Okay, that last one was a trick question, they all go together, at least according to Slovenian Group Atomik Harmonik. Their videos are in the right column under "Videospot". If you only watch one, watch Turbo Polka, a song that put them on the charts in Germany and Austria. The accordian pimp in the ice cream suit is not to be missed. The sad thing is that Scandahoovian choreography doesn't seem to have improved much since the days of Armi and Danny from Finland, but at least the dancers are moving at the same time and the camera work makes it harder to see what they're actually doing.

Jenn and I were watching Star Trek TNG the other day, and one of the episodes we watched was "Lonely Among Us". In it there's a bit where Captain Picard gets posessed and starts acting strangely. The way Patrick Stewart chose to portray Picard acting strangely was with untimely pauses, odd word emphasis, and posed, cocky body language. In other words, he appeared to be doing an impression of William Shatner playing Captain Kirk. I'm wondering if it was deliberate.

A while ago I randomly decided to do a google image search for Judy Garland, and I came across this livejournal entry. The "Top X (movies, songs, babes, tv shows, cheeses, etc) of ALL TIME!" lists that you find in magazines have been a pet peeve of mine for a while, partly because those lists are generated by the magazine's editors as opposed to authorities on the subjects, partly because the issues are subjective and I don't need some magazine to tell me what's what, and partly because they usually omit something I think need to be included (for example, I have never seen Diana Rigg in any kind of list about beautiful women). What I liked about this list of beautiful celebrities was that it was clearly just the author's opinions, and it wasn't all flavour-of-the-week-forgotten-in-ten-years, maxim-type skinny girls. Also, it included Jennifer Blaire, which I thought was awesome. So I decided to make my own. I soon realized something that would disqualify me from compiling a list like this for a magazine, and that is that I have great difficulty coming up with a significant number of celebrities who's image I am familiar with and find attractive. Anyway, I'm satisfied with the final result, so I now proudly present...

STEVE'S TOP 100* BEAUTIFUL WOMEN** OF ALL TIME***!!!



*Actually, only the top seven.
**Celebrities only. I prefer to ogle real women, but they never make it onto these lists.
***"All time" actually means 1950 to 2005 only.
( Read more... )

Some people don't understand algebra, and I can't understand why. As soon as the basic ideas were explained to me it seemed intuitive. It seems so incredibly easy, and the fact that anyone who graduated from high school can't solve (and refuse to try) brain teasers that start along the lines of "a husband and wife have a combined age of..." baffles frustrates me the way that any random driver might feel when stuck behind another driver who insists on doing 20km/h under the limit along a straight stretch. Well, maybe not that much, my own mathematical abilities become severely challenged in the face of integral calculus, and not everyone took math in senior high, but I still feel junior high math should be doable by everyone.

However, a while ago I decided that I should be less judgmental about this, because I am not without my own shortcomings. For the most part, I came to this conclusion because I have never understood poetry, and it was high time to stop saying that I didn't understand it because it was stupid. I understand rhythym, rhyming schemes, connotation, and all the components, and I can even write structured poetry, although it's always of the humourous variety, and I have a tendency to fudge iambic pentameter as meaning ten syllables. But I can't do unstructured poetry. It seems pointless to start a new line when there's still room on the paper, so unless it has some kind of structure, I don't see a poem as being anything other than a paragraph that's been broken up, which is illogical and hard to read. But other people get it, so the problem must be with me somewhere. And actually, it's not just poetry but high art in general. Like when I went to the Vancouver Art Gallery, and there was an eight foot, shiny, purple plank leaning against the wall. My reaction was a resounding "What the hell is this!?", but later I heard a tour guide walking some children through how to look at it, and in noticing that it was shiny, the kids noticed that they could see everything reflected purple. I have no idea what that means, but a bunch of kids picked up on it and I didn't, and now that I've heard it, it's freaking obvious.

That being said, low art (if there is such a term) is easy for me, the way that anyone can add two four digit numbers, even if they have to write it down the long way. I understand limericks, because they rhyme and they're funny, and I understand paintings and sculptures that depict tangible things, or things that could be tangible if they were'nt imaginary, or things that just plain look neat (usually in a geometric way), like Escher's sketches.

I guess what I'm trying to say is don't know art, but I know what I like. And I like this: the CGNetworks Grand Space Opera Challenge. This makes me want Gurps Space for 4th ed. very badly, but it's not out yet. It also makes me want something by Doug Chiang.

Jenn and I recieved two DVD sets for our wedding. One was Star Trek TNG, another was the LOTR extended box set. I've noticed that klingons and dwarves have similar fashion sense in terms of scale mail and long curly hair styles. This makes me wonder, do dwarven women have a fashion sense similar to klingon women, with the fishnet sleeves and leggings, and cleavage exposing armour?

If an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, doesn't that make the cure a better value?

So, if people were like flies, in that we had to eat everything through a probiscus, and had to vomit our stomach acid onto our food to let it digest before we sucked it up, would that be acceptable in polite society, or would we prepare all of our food to be mostly digested already? And if so, would we still have seperate food and beverage in restaurants, or would you just go to McDonalds and get a big cardboard cup of warm grease, salt and acid-treated beef with mashed potatoes, ketchup and sugar water stirred in?

Okay, so if you were to compare the Beetles to Monty Python, who would you make analagous to who, and which Pythoner would be left out? Here's how I pictured it:

Eric Idle - Paul McCartney
John Cleese - John Lennon
Terri Jones - Ringo Starr
Michael Palin - George Harrison

Graham Chapman does not get to be compared to a Beetle. This is the order in which I made up the comparisons, and the funny thing is that Michael Palin and George Harrison are my favourites from each group. Also, don't ask why they're matched up that way, it was kind of intuitive.


Today I returned DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball. It's tempting to buy, but only so that I can read the manual and actually win a volleyball match on purpose. The girls are fun to look at, but they're really bratty and you have to buy them stuff, which makes them less attractive. The casino is kind of fun, but there's just one stupid japanese lounge song that loops in the background. All in all, not worth owning. I had to stop in to Jenn's to pick up the game before I could return it, and there was this suspicious looking bunny sitting outside the building when I left. Weird.

I just watched the Hulk with commentary by Ang Lee. Most of it seemed to involve "I really like this scene," and then you wait for him to extrapolate, but he doesn't. Actually, it's not that bad. You learn a couple of interesting bits of inspiration sources, and he talks about a couple things outside of the film that are neat to hear too. All in all, it's worth hearing if you like the movie, but it's nowhere near as good as Weird Al's commentary on UHF for pure informative value. Random aside: the "rock and roll" song that goes with the Hulk is so lame, so very, very lame. It is such glam rock written by comissioned old guys who used to be big, and then the world moved on without them. Who the hell asks Slash to write a song for a movie that they want for a summer blockbuster? Kids are the major box-office dictators for success, and who among them is going to know who Slash is? And who hires Ang Lee to try to make a summer blockbuster? Ang Lee makes art, and I can totally see it in the Hulk (like, wow man, totally.), but that doesn't mean it will sell to your target audience. Crouching Tiger went big because it was a beautiful film. Spiderman went big because it was a) Spiderman and b) from a Sam Raimi who makes entertaining movies which are a different kind of art. If Ang Lee and Sam Raimi were cooks, Ang Lee is the guy I would go to for filet mignon, and Sam Raimi is who I would go to for pulled pork. Very different cuts of meat, very different in preparation, not to mention the class of people associated with each, but they're both so very good in their own merits. The point is, why do you hire the filet mignon director when you want a cheeseburger crowd who will buy your action figures, playing cards, cookies, board games, pudding, pajamas, posters, skateboards, backpacks, shirts and all the other truckloads of unsold hulk merchandise that you see everywhere? And then you get some burnt out old dude who hasn't made any top whatever hits in years and can't escape a dead music style to make your theoretical chart-topper so kids will buy the soundtrack too? Do the people who made these decisions live in some kind of orbital station with a staticky communications beam to reality or something? If you ask me, it's more likely that the individuals responsible just don't like movies or music, and decided to gamble with names.

Okay, ranting aside, I really like that movie. It's my favourite comic book adaptation. But the song "Set me Free" is like the dead fly on the cake that the icing has hardened to. You just have to pretend it isn't there and avoid that portion. Okay, end rant now.

Stupid song.

New topic! Okay, so I make edge protectors. Non-corrugated cardboard things. The thickness is usually 0.170 inches, give or take 0.005. Today the boss stopped by and checked my work, and he told me I was running a little thick. I looked at the caliper he was measuring with, and it read 0.177". Too thick, unless you're producing our 0.180" ep's, which I was. I pointed this out, and the boss looked at the production chart, looked at the boxes the ep's were going in, and said "in that case, they're fine." I guess it was funnier in person, probably because I had made that same mistake that morning. Okay, fine, it isn't funny at all, nevermind.

Okay, so Darth Vader's tie fighter is a one of a kind custom creation, right? And Anakin is all about being "fast and furious" with his vehicles, so it only makes sense that Vader built his own tie. The question is, does Darth Vader maintain his own tie fighter?

Pro: Vader built/modified the tie himself, so only he is going to know how a bunch of it went together, unless he wrote a repair/maintainance guide to go with it, but I just can't picture Darth Vader sitting still long enough for that. Furthermore, Anakin explained that he likes to repair things in episode 2, so working on the tie fighter is probably one place where Vader can relax for a bit. Now what I have to ask is does Vader have a big red toolbox with old publicity shots of Amidala taped up inside the lid? Or does he not use tools, turning bolts etc. with the force instead?

Con: Vader has his special meditation chamber to relax in. And what would the emperor say about the only other Lord of the Sith in existance hanging out with mechanics and getting his suit all black and greasy? Or at least, greasy? Can you imagine the pressure on the tech who does the repairs? Just maintaining Vader's personal settings in the cockpit has got to be a constant source of stress. Vader towers over everyone else, right? Tall guy gets in the cockpit, and the seat goes back. Short guy goes in for maintainance, and it goes forward. What happens if it doesn't go back in the exact spot Vader wants it? "I apologize Lord Vader, it won't happen ag- *ack* *gasp* [crunch]"

Personally, I think that Vader hand picked one or two of the top techs on staff, and assigned them exclusively to his fighter. He gave them the basic rundown, and if they don't understand something they come to him, although there's little that they wouldn't understand since they're the best techs available. These guys are probably the closest things Vader has to friends, and I'll bet he wastes all sorts of their time just stopping in to talk shop. Typical.

Long before a bunch of goobs made their own chainmail and hit each other with wooden swords, thus founding the Society for Creative Anachronism, there was a man named Ivar Kreuger who created a holding company for 10 Swedish forestry companies. This holding company grew over time to produce tissue products, and is today one of the largest companies to supply North America. And so the toilet paper used in my workplace is produced by the SCA. I'd comment on this coincidence, but it's too easy.

http://www.scatissue.com/

Work was uneventful and work-like today. I did, however, remember something from when I was a kid that I haven't thought about for a while. You see, I knew that the people on TV were just actors, I think I knew that the Muppets were puppets, but I didn't realize that cartoon people were just drawings. To this end I had a dream once in which I saw the cast of He-Man backstage (backstage looking exactly like the rancher I was living in at the time). Everone was having some food in between takes, and He-Man and Man at Arms were spying on the sorceress going to the bathroom and snickering. So you see, even though I didn't know the word, I dreamed of voyeurism as a five year old. How messed up is that?