Just to start this entry with something that isn't Star Wars, here's a joke I just thought up after tidying dinner.

Q: Sometimes when you lift a pot roast out of a crock pot, a piece of meat falls off and lands back in the broth, and you can't find it again. Where does it disappear to?

A: Gravy Jones' Locker!

What, you no like? Maybe me not shutting up about Star Wars is not so bad after all. This is more of a Lego post anyway. Images of the 2007 lineup have been leaked. ( Observe behind cut. )

This morning began with me beating Jedi Knight 2, which I had actually stopped cheating to play after about the fourth level or so. Last night, I made it up to the final boss battle, and found it unbeatable. I looked for hints, and one of the ones I found was to set down a bunch of automated defense turret things, and release floating defense drone things, which distract the boss so badly you can just cut him down. I found these items nearly useless for most of the game, so I had five of each. Worked like a charm, beat the game in about 15 seconds, although it's probably not the noble jedi way to do things.

I tidied up the place with Jenn's help, and we set to work prepping food for our barbecue. I also sampled some of the beer I've been brewing, and bottled two weeks ago with my dad. It's got a nice flavour developing, almost like white wine, but I accidentally gave my dad the wrong measuring spoon to put priming sugar into the bottles with, so now the beer is severely lacking in carbonation. Hopefully it will improve after three weeks. Jenn and I cut up potatoes, onions and mushrooms, and I made buffalo burger patties using this recipe:

2 lbs ground buffalo (consistantly available in 1 lb vacuum bags at the Big Fresh Farmer's Market)
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup bread crumbs
4 cloves garlic, crushed
worcestershire sauce and montreal steak spice to taste

Just mix the ingredients and shape into patties. I didn't have wax paper to stick between patties, so I used paper towels. They actually worked really well, and absorbed a lot of moisture from the burgers, which seemed to make them stick together better. I do wish I owned one of those burger pattie pressing tubes with the plastic spacers, though, that would be awesome for doing them up ahead of time. The onions and mushrooms were fried up seperately, and Jenn deep fried the potatoes. I got the charcoal going using the starter can, worked like a hot damn, I love that thing. I managed to get some traditional lump charcoal from Canadian tire, which I thought was really cool because the pieces aren't a uniform shape like brickettes. What really knocked my socks off was that once they started glowing there was no smoke at all, so I'm never using brickettes again if I can avoid them. The burgers turned out magnificent, and I had kaiser buns from the Vianna bakery around the corner, and man, those kaisers, even when they're a couple days old they're waaay softer than fresh kaisers anywhere else, it's like the difference between sponge and styrofoam. We had cheddar and swiss cheese to put on the burgers, and goat's cheese to spread on the buns if you're into the fancy stuff. Colin and eventually Derek came over to join us for burgers and fries, I kind of wish we could have had more guests, but a) our place is small and b) we didn't have tons of food to go around, although there are a few leftover burgers.

While we were doing the prep work, I popped on to MSN messenger to see if I could find Derek. I set my status to busy right away, but that didn't stop one of my "pen pals" from pinging me. You see, I have this contingent of british teenage guys who have friended me for no real reason, and this was a new one. Anyway, here's the conversation we had, which I found amusing:

hearts r the shittest scum in the world says:
mongo

Bumbot says:
mongo to you too, buddy

hearts r the shittest scum in the world says:
r u sam williams?

Bumbot says:
no sir.

hearts r the shittest scum in the world says:
ye u r arent u

hearts r the shittest scum in the world says:
who r u then?

Bumbot says:
Steve. In Canada. Today is Canada Day, so if I don't answer, it's because I'm working my grill.

hearts r the shittest scum in the world says:
it is u i asked jack b

hearts r the shittest scum in the world says:
nice try

hearts r the shittest scum in the world says:
canada my arse

hearts r the shittest scum in the world says:
!!!!!!!!

hearts r the shittest scum in the world says:
!

hearts r the shittest scum in the world says:
!

hearts r the shittest scum in the world says:
u r sam i know it

Bumbot says:
Sorry, bozo, I'm not sam. Observe my ancient geocities page: http://www.geocities.com/bumbot/steve.html how many bumbots do you think there are?

I kind of wish he'd continued to be dim at me after this, but he seems to have figured it out and left me alone.

After foods, we hung around and chatted, and eventually went out to the video store around the corner, where after much deliberation and some railroading, we rented Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle, which turns out to be at least partially Canadian (including a bit part played by Shaun Majumder, a favourite comedian of mine). I wasn't sure what to expect, the critics said that it was basically a standard stoner comedy, but it was written intelligently and managed to break the mold in some respects. I wound up liking it very much, and highly recommend it to just about anyone. The characterizations of the two protagonists were great, and I like the way that they weren't quite idiots or cool guys, but just a couple of normal young people with their own individual hangups and strengths, who happened to enjoy getting high on friday nights. I also liked seeing an asian and a south asian guy in the lead roles, playing these average north americans, as I see that all the time around me, but not so much in most films. Racism was relied on rather heavily to establish the antagonists as jerks, but it didn't seem entirely irrelevant. Potty humour was present, but kept to a minimal level in my opinion, and also used in what was to me a creative way. Unwanted homoerotic overtures ran rampant throughout the movie, but I am guilty of laughing at them. It was similar to Rat Race and The Stupids, in that a grand adventure is begun, goes out of control in a million different ways, and seemingly unrelated events wind up coming coming together to make things work out for the protagonists. All in all, I'd say it's an owner.

After watching some of the special features, Colin and Derek were kicked out, and as it was only 10:00 Jenn and I cleaned up for tea. This is actually the first time the barbecue has had time to cool of the same day I've used it, so all I had to do was bring it down to the landing so I could have light to scoop it out with, and the grills have a non-stick surface and are very easy to clean with the dishes. This actually made cleanup super easy, so all my grilling will be done in the early afternoon from now on, which means I should be able to get lots more grilling done this summer. Maybe after or during the next tea we host (not tomorrow, the one after) I'll set up the grill and have a little byom lunch with everyone. Anyway, between all the coffee I drank and the junk food I consumed, I'm wide awake, so I'm just going to stay up for a while, hence the blog.

Here's an idea I had at work the other day, inspired by those "cross two or more movies" type photoshop contests. Of course, photoshop costs too much so this was made using the Gimp. So I guess this wasn't "photoshopped" so much as "gimped". I find that more amusing anyway.

So without further ado:


Also, here's a larger version for those who want it:
http://www.maj.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=332333

I told Derek about this at the last tea I came to, so here it is for him and all others. (As an aside, I remember my dad really liked To Kill a Mocking Bird, and had the soundtrack on LP. I also read the book and saw the movie in highschool, so I found this absolutely hilarious.)

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/mockingbird.php

So I've been watching the He-Man dvds and it's kind of interesting what I forgot from childhood, and what I'm noticing now that I'm older. For example, the exploding "love beads" Teela keeps in her codpiece:


( Read more... )

I hear that for the next Harry Potter movie the role of Hermione has been recast to appeal to a broader audience.



Or maybe I just dreamed that. Let's see what it says at the bottom of a Guinness can.

One day, Padme Amidala went to the Jedi Temple to see Anakin. She'd just come out of a rough session at the senate and wanted to vent at him. On the way, a garbage barge slopped some foul smelling water on her while she was waiting for her air taxi, which she had to call twice and wound up waiting nearly an hour for. Aayla Secura was near the temple entrance when Padme finally came in, and asked Padme, "Can I help you with something?" to which Padme replied tersely, "Nevermind, I see him over there." so she stormed off to see Anakin. Later that day, Aayla bumped in to Anakin, and said, "Hey, what was up with that woman I saw you with? She was kind of rude to me." Anakin explained, "Oh, that was Padme Amidala, the senator from Naboo. Don't take it personally, she was just in a bad mood from having a rough day. Sometimes on Naboo when a woman is mean and rude they call her a cow, but if a woman is generally pleasant they only say she 'has the cows', like she's fallen ill, if she's in a foul mood. So, Padme just kind of 'had the cows', you know what I mean?"

The next day was Aayla Secura's turn for bad luck. The council had assigned her to a bunch of scut work in the lower levels of Coruscant, some punk stole her packed lunch while she was dealing with rebel spies and a wild shot singed her right lekku. When she got back to the temple (which wasn't untill late that night), Padme was there, and asked "Excuse me, do you know where Anakin Skywalker is?", and Aayla said "Go find him yourself, I'm busy." Padme eventually tracked down Anakin and told him about Aayla, and asked, "What was that about? I thought Jedi were supposed to be all serene and stuff!" and Anakin said "Even blue girls get the cows."

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?

Thursday night: went to Jenn's as fast as I could after work to discover her asleep.

Friday: Jenn and I went out looking at dressers. Nothing of particular interest in any of the antique shops on front street, but Modern Woodcraft in burnaby did have a nice one. It's a frightening sum of money, but what I have to try and remember is that it could potentially last the rest of our lives and the cost is being split down the middle. Since we were by Brentwood, I went shopping for shorts. It was absolutely impossible to find a pair that wasn't some ridiculous skater style, AND had a non-pleated front AND had a metal zipper for less than $50, and since I don't pay $50 for full length pants, why would I pay that much for shorts? When we got back I saw some pizza flyers in the lobby of Jenn's building so I grabbed them. I don't know why I can't resist pizza flyers, but it's this weird compulsion that I have to look through them. Like I'm some kind of oriental vampire that you can escape by throwing a handful of rice on the ground and he'll have to stop and count the grains. "Ah, it's Steve! Quick, scatter some pizza flyers around!" Then I cut the greens, thinking about how much I like Pizza Hut's ham, so I ordered pizza for dinner.

Saturday: Jenn came home from work bagged and woke me up, so I turned the TV on and played quietly on my Xbox. I was on this particularly pissy bit of Taz: Wanted where if you don't make this one jump exactly right you fall way the hell down and have to run around for about a minute and a half to get back to the same spot. At that point I decided that I was going to finish the stupid game that day and never deal with it again. It took about 6 hours, but I finally got all the way through. If you ever have the chance to play that game, don't. The camera is terrible, and there's all manner of stuff screwing you up because you can't see, or something moved so up is now right, therefore you fall in the lava again. Once I was done, I decided to get out for some air. I got a sub, and went to Blockbuster to check out their games. They had a deal where you can rent two 7day games for about $9, but they didn't have Godzilla, so I didn't bother. I looked in the previously played section and saw Aquaman for $15, which tempted me but I didn't bother. Then I went to Zellers, and was very tempted to buy stuff for Jenn's apartment, but I figured I should wait untill she could have some input. I picked up what I needed, and went back to Jenn's. She was awake, so I told her about what I saw, and we went bact to Zellers and picked up a floor fan, a rubbermaid container, a DVD rack and towels. I assembled the fan (that was fun!) and then it was the long anticipated introduction of Jenn's and my parents at the Old Spaghetti Factory. In a nutshell, it went beautifully. Jenn went to Jane's party, but I knew it would go to late for me, so I caved and bought Aquaman, as well as a few groceries.

Sunday: I played Aquaman, and it was fun. After the third level, however, my Xbox couldn't read the disk. I cleaned it (and the console) many times, but it didn't work untill I decided to try it one last time before I took it back up the hill. After tea I was able to talk some people into going to the Jiffy Wiffy, and I was able to get some lemon chicken.

Today I saw the first mosquito of the summer. So I squished it.

Today I made up two jokes at work. I shall now provide them for you in Christmas Cracker insert format.

#1

Q: What do you get when you ask a quack australian psychologist for advice?

A: Duck billed platitudes.

#2

Man: Was that you I saw getting thrown out of the strip club last night?

Geek: Yeah.

Man: What happened?

Geek: Well, I was just watching the show, but I wasn't too interested until this one girl came out wearing a chainmail bikini with a scimitar. I thought she was really hot, so I threw a bunch of tens and twenties at her.

Man: And they threw you out for that?

Geek: Yeah, I guess they aren't set up to accept dice as currency.

The annoying thing about making up jokes is that I usually run into at least one person who says "I heard that one before!"

Today something inconvenient happened at work, and Sergei (Russian guy I work with) said that today was not our day. I said "Such is life." He told me that in Russia they say life is like a zebra. Black stripe, white stripe, black stripe, white stripe, and then you hit the ass.

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/