I recently picked up two new Pratchett books; Reaper Man and Unseen Academicals. Granted only the latter is actually new, but nonetheless they’re both new to my library (which is currently contained in boxes in my bedroom wardrobe). I intended to be reading Reaper Man as, after all, Death is my favorite character in the series’. However, Academicals has captured me. Perhaps it’s because I didn’t catch a single World Cup football game this year, but it’s got me.
It’s Pratchett, so it’s always worth a read, and being #37 in a list of books I’ve been attacking randomly, I figure I will be, at least temporarily, book-ending the series so to speak. I’ve read about as many books at the end of the series as I have at the beginning.
Anyway… Go, go Pratchett go! You know, cause Inspector Gadget died whilst trying to construct a sex aid, and Pratchett fills the rhyme.
I’m surprised how draining training a young dog is, I knew it would be effort but I didn’t know it would be exhausting whilst keeping to my regular sleep schedules.
Alas, she’s coming along well. Much less anxiety in general, and much less anxiety about being left alone and being put in her crate. It could be much, much worse.
There was a beautiful sunrise this morning, but Kelly superseded it.
We visited the Burlington/Hamilton SPCA today looking at some of the Lab crosses, when a little girl called Kelly walked in. Friendly as anything, we didn’t have a choice. We now have a little terrier cross. She needs some work, but she’s not food nor toy aggressive and she’s friendly with all other dogs.
She was excitable around Baxter, but with a little patience she’s only mildly interested in him now and by the looks of it, Baxter is the boss (from within his cage!).
So it looks like the whole Fred thing isn’t going to work out. It took the better part of a week to get a response the first time, and then the woman from Bluetick and Bloodhound Rescue Ontario was at best impolite on the phone, but more indignant at having to consider us.
She was completely obstinate that he had to be placed in a house with a large fenced in back yard. I find it rather negligent that she cared more about a yard than actually trying to determine if we would be able to exercise the dog. Besides the fact that a yard doesn’t take a young dog out for a long walk, nor does it give it socialization or exposure to new experiences. You should never be letting your dog piss and shit in your backyard, especially if you have young kids as dog excrement can actually cause blindness in small children.
The whole thing just didn’t have the right feel, so we’re going to look at the local rescue shelters that actually seem to take a proactive approach to getting their animals adopted, which means they actually save more.
We received our first call from the adoption place, which wasn’t exactly the greatest call. For an animal rescue, you’d expect them to be a little more enthusiastic about placing a dog. They were extremely concerned about a yard for the dog for exercise, which seems a little asinine to me when any dog expert would tell you that putting the dog in the yard doesn’t count as exercise. This is especially stupid of a bloodhound rescue, as scenthounds are the one type of dog you should never trust outside, because a fence means nothing if the dog is interested enough.
Alas, we’re going to continue with the process. It seemed like we were being tested, which hopefully we were, but next time we talk to the woman I’m going to be calling her out on a lot of things, otherwise we’ll be going somewhere that actually cares about rescuing a dog.
With several weeks of awful weather reporting by The Weather Network, and simply laughable weather reporting by CHCH (Hamilton City) news, and a seemingly random volcanic eruption that has stranded my brother in France (the lucky bastard) . . . I am wondering if there is any merit in believing there is perfect weather for my work week ahead. Mid ten’s Monday through Friday with zero precipitation, it almost sounds too good to be true.
Having grown up with England’s April Showers I have half a mind to wrap myself in a tarp and prepare for a deluge of biblical proportions. However, for now at least, I will trust the predictions and hope I stay dry.
With the history of volcanic eruptions from Iceland, there could be interesting weather on the forefront. With eruptions being recognized to have lasted up to a year, it could be potentially devastating for European air travel but a potential boon for the car wash industry at the same time. I suppose it would be nice to see The Scream-esque sunsets the volcanic ash will cause throughout Europe. Who knows, we might even get another great piece of art out of this!
Last week was a busy week, as of about 2:30 on Tuesday I became a fully fledged Canadian Permanent Resident — took long enough. Friday marked the beginning of my twenty-second year on this fateful planet, which means I’m just that little bit older, wiser and have less of a justifiable reason to want to spend my free time watching movies and playing video games, but I doubt that’s going to change any.
A review of Repo Men is on its way, when I get enough free time.
So after many, many decades the US healthcare system may finally be joining the rest of the world with a form of nationalised healthcare. However, despite grasping the bull by the horns, they’ve still to wrestle it to the ground. Whether or not the US will actually get a form of universal healthcare that the world recognises will only be told with time.
It still won’t be until 2014 that the US system will even begin to resemble other countries access to care, but then the US is already well over a half-century behind the western world so there’s probably little sense in them rushing to join us all.
I don’t have many thoughts on this, beyond “about damn time” as this really doesn’t affect my life in any way. At least it’s another thing I can check of my mental list of American ass-backwardism thanks to the democrats, however I’m quite sure the Republicans will be fighting tooth and nail for the next decade to get themselves added back on to the moron list.
Sometimes in life, it sucks to be an American hockey fan . . . I’m glad I’m not. The US did an admiral job tying up the game in the final 30 seconds, however their luck didn’t last during the sudden death overtime. Too bad boys, better luck in Russia 2014.
I’ve not liked the medal ranking being used by the NA media, I much prefer the IOC ranking of the most gold medals (the system used by the BBC). Although out of fairness, I believe a weighted system should be used (gold = 3, silver = 2, bronze = 1), which would still have the top teams in the same positions, but gives a lot more credit to the teams in the lower ranks. It also places Korea in its rightful place, many of them did simply amazing and shouldn’t be placed behind Austria and Russia who weren’t fielding nearly as many of the worlds’ best athletes.
However, no matter how you rank it, the UK flat out sucked like an old prostitute. When you never see snow it’s hard to learn how to play in it. I’m hoping for better in the London summer games, but even being a non-religious man I know it’ll take more than every Brit praying for a miracle to get us anywhere near winning the most golds. Maybe Briton will win by the 2186 games . . . just being realistic.
Video Games are already art, Mr Ebert
Video Games are art, but apparently Roger Ebert cannot get with the times on this. He first made his opinion clear in 2005, and recently just cemented the evidence of his ignorance this April [see here]. For those out of the loop, Ebert is a world renowned film critic, he also isn’t a gamer and I question whether he’s ever played enough games to be eligible to comment (IE a single game, ever). He’s as ignorant of the medium as middle-america right-wing psycho-moms. If you’ve never played, you have no clue. If you’ve never seen a movie, you have no clue. If you’ve never read a book, you’re likely illiterate (or should be legally considered it) and have no clue. You cannot justifiably comment on something if you’ve never experienced it, Ebert of all people should know this.
Granted the majority of big-title games care little about telling an actual story (yes Halo, Half-life, you can stand up and be noted as having meaningful story) and merely use it to string together great action scenes. But then I saw the Matrix 2, and I fail to see a valid difference except that video games are more engaging as an art form. Read my review of Repo Men, it was little more than action scenes stitched together by sex scenes and poor plot. Has Ebert never seen a western? They’re little more than action scenes stitched together by modest story, yet they rank as some of the best films in the world. I would personally list The Dollars Trilogy amongst my favorite movies ever, yet by Eberts standard for ‘art’ they certainly are not.
He condemns Braid for telling a story between the games level because it “exhibits prose on the level of a wordy fortune cookie.” To which I would respond Hemingways six-word novel (For sale: baby shoes, never used.), which exhibits prose on the level of a rather terse fortune cookie. If you want to talk about story, look at least at Halo, but please look at something by BioWare like Dragon Age or Mass Effect, or Knights of the Old Republic.
“Why aren’t gamers content to play their games and simply enjoy themselves? . . . Do they require validation? In defending their gaming against parents, spouses, children, partners, co-workers or other critics, do they want to be able to look up from the screen and explain, “I’m studying a great form of art?” Then let them say it, if it makes them happy.”
Why, Mr Ebert, thank you for clearly displaying how abstract you are from the current times. I grew up playing video games with my parents, they never had a single problem with it. In fact I have many fond memories of playing Age of Empires with my dad. As I’m writing this my wife is eloquently displaying my point by rocking out on Guitar Hero to a Weezer song. My co-workers? Video games are a main avenue of conversation, as frequently (if not more frequently) brought up than movies. Also despite not having children, it doesn’t take any skill whatsoever in foresight to know that my children are going to be in a world much more socially accepting of games than this one currently is.