As far as audio stuff goes, I’ve been truly impressed with I Love Bees. It’s got something to do with the Halo 2 game, I don’t know. I do know that “I love Bees” was an “alternate reality game”, so keep that in mind when listening to the audio, as very occasionally there’ll be a reference to something that happened in the game. As soon as you listen to the first chapter, you’ll want to find out more about the whole phenomena and you’ll catch all the references. Just google some stuff, there’s tones of fan information out there for whatever you could possibly want to know (I believe I found really good information on wikipeda, but they’re down right now (boo!))

Apparently, some of the voice actors are recognizable from other games. One of the male voices is in Prince of Persia, for example.

I wish it was possible to do a short rundown on the story, but it’s far too complex, it really has to be listened to to be appreciated.

I rather enjoyed the voice acting and the story. Don’t give up on it after listening to one, listen to the first chapter then judge.

Here’s a commercial that we made at the auto show. Dodge had it set up. Yes, that IS me in it. It was pretty cool. Here it is

Hope you like it.

Hey! Just got back from this year’s Canadian International Autoshow. It was pretty good, we were always rushed because this year we were limited to 6 hours at the show, when you really need more to see everything. I don’t understand why the CEO (Head? King? I’m not sure what his title really is) of the autoshow organization said that you should take 2-3 hours to see it all. Is the guy a marathon runner or something? It takes at least a half an hour to travel between all three buildings! We made it through all three, even though we didn’t spend long in each.

I still like the Smart Car.  I know probably no one else does, but for commuting or going around in a city, how can you go wrong?  For commuting, the gas mileage is pretty damn good (3.2L/100 KM, though don't quote me on that...) and it costs like $15 to fill the tank.  It doesn't have a huge trunk, I know, but if you're going Christmas shopping, how great would it be to be able to fit into almost any parking space?  As long as you aren't buying bulky things, it ought to be OK (Stick to blow-up items for as many people as you can and you could fit ALL your Christmas shopping in this car :p ) (I know what you're thinking, you're sick minded.  I just thought everyone loved beach balls....)

I like the Honda Element too.  Yeah, I know it looks like a box.  No, that doesn't bother me.  If you're looking for a car that can actually do some of the stuff they do on commercials, this'd be it.  You put all the chairs flat, you've got two beds, you put the back seats flat, flip them up to the sides of the car, and you've got tonnes of room to put in all your crap (you could roll in a few bikes, no problem.  None of that having to lay them down junk).  There's just something to be said for an "adventure" car with a floor you can hose down.  The car may not be overly pretty, but if you actually want to DO things with it, this ought to be near the top of your list.

I hate the Hummer.  I hated the H1, I hated the H2, and I hate the H3.  I have NEVER seen a Hummer driven by anyone I would remotely associate with "wilderness enthusiest" or "offroader" or "hired assassin for eliminating targets in rough terrain".  These people look like soccer Moms and either they or their significant other makes too much money (I've never seen one driven by a man, seriously!).  If they wanted safety, they ought to get a Volvo, not a Gas Guzzler 5000.  I'm not some eco-nut here, I usually am more of a "let people do what they want" kind of guy, but come on, they're spending tonnes of money and wasting tonnes of gas paying for capabilities they've never even seriously thought of using.  It's the stupidity I hate.

There's far too many vehicles to go through any sort of a number of them, so we'll go on to the next part of the adventure.  Via Rail.

We took the train to Toronto, and I'm always bewildered by them.  Not in a good way, of course.  They go on a track, its impossible for them to take a better or a worse route, yet it was still late coming to pick us up.  Then it was even LATER dropping us off.  We were a half hour late walking into the Auto Show, without even a "sorry" from Via.  No use crying over spilt milk, we rushed into the show and tried to make up for lost time.  On the way back, the train was 15 minutes late pulling into the station (if only we had known in advance it would have been late!) but that was merely a sign of things to come.  During the route, on we were delayed for freight being moved about on two seperate occasions.  Lovely.  So, that set us probably 10-15 minutes behind schedule.  Then, as the crowning moment of stupidity, the desel-electric train had power problems.  40 minutes of just sitting there on the track with nothing to do, with only the emergency light shining.  Luckily, they managed to get it going again.   No wonder no one rides the train anymore...

You know, I rather thought that we were at the point where E-Commerce was a reality. The anything-I-want, any-time-I-want-it mentality was supposed to be alive and well. However, there’s still some things you just can’t find.

I was leafing through an issue of “Popular Science” (Yeah, I know… I’m a bit of a geek…) and I saw this really interesting product: It’s a cup of coffee that can heat itself up in just a few minutes to be ready-to-drink. So, I think to myself, “Holy crap! That’s wonderful! I can have a few bottles of this stuff sitting in my locker, and when I’m feeling down I can just bring it out, hit the button and I’m drinking coffee in minutes!” Problem is, its only being sold by “Wolfgang Puck”. Never heard of them myself, but apparently its a fairly big American company. So, OK, I think to myself, I’m not going to find it at Giant Tiger any time soon, but big companies all have websites to buy stuff from. Not Wolfgang Pucks, it seems. While their site seems fairly modern you can’t buy a bloody thing from them! However, I’m a level-headed geek so, naturally, I check out Amazon.com, the home of everything being sold anywhere on the internet, and while they DO offer Wolfgang Puck coffee, it’s the boring ground kind. Far from cool and even further from fast. I even searched E-Bay, hoping someone’d put a few cans up for sale there, but, alas, there was nothing.

Guess I’ll just have to wait until there’s a Canadian distributor. So much for the new “boarderless world” in which we live.

EDIT: It turns out one of the tea-towels in the kitchen is made by Wolfgang Puck. Huh, the things you find out….

… I’m not particularly sure WHY I have a blog now, but I do…. I suppose this is my soapbox now… to rant and to rave from… I wonder if I’ll ever update it….

As for now, I’ve got some university application work to do. I don’t understand it! I sent in my OSAP stuff, and I got back a little slip from the University of Waterloo, saying they’ve got it. In the back, in small print, it says (along with other things) “What to do now:” and one of those things is “Visit our website designed especially for applicants” etc. etc.

Now me, being the person that I am, naturally assumed that this was just another way for them to sell their school (there’s like 2 important pages in their little university booklet, why would their website be any different?) But, eventually I went on out of boredom.

So, it seems I have to fill out some ADDITIONAL paperwork to be seriously considered as an applicant. Well crap. I don’t know, if I were them I would’ve put, in huge letters, probably in hot pink (instead of their normal drab black) “Your Application Is Not Finished Yet!! You Must Visit Our Site And Give Us MORE INFORMATION”. But no, we get “Visit our website designed especially for applicants” in size 10 font. The fake signature of the “Director of Admissions” is bigger then this vitally important information!! I certainly wasn’t expecting them to have this teeny tiny text with important stuff in there. I donno, maybe its just me that has this problem….

For such a smart University, they have really stupid people working in their “information” department. Then they wonder why kids are so stressed about University applications. Gah! We’ve got to read so much small print its a wonder our eyes don’t start bleeding!