Amusing and Interesting

I had an interesting learning experience today.  I went to work to do some architecting (ooooooo…) and oddly my car wouldn’t lock using the remote.  So I locked via key and thought little of it, figuring the battery in the remote was dead.  Turns out not so much… for the car itself wouldn’t start when I returned.  All the lights would come on, but the engine wouldn’t even pretend to turn over.  As I awaited my housemate to pick me up I checked the fuses and lo and behold a fuse was burned out.  What I therefore learned was that the fuse that regulates the key beeper alarm thingee also controls/interrupts the whole ignition.

Thankfully a new fuse bought and installed and I was off.

The whole of the Robotech series is now available for viewing in its entirety, legally and for free on Hulu and Youtube.  Woo!  Alas it seems to be some version that was remastered or something, and as part of that they chose to dub in new sound effects, such that now there are a whack tonne of sound effects for every.single.little.thing, often loudly (plus they removed some of what I considered ‘classic’ sound effects).  I’m not thrilled with the result of that dubbing, cool as it remains to have the episodes available as they are.

Picture if you will… Kannik, kitchen towel over his shoulder, pot rack overhead, pound iron wok on the gas stove, cutting away with fresh produce… yea, tonight was the night to initiate my long-unused wok on the gas stove.  It’s been ages since I made a stir fry, and the first I’ve made on a gas stove.  It went pretty swimmingly, I learned pretty quickly how much ingredient wise I can put in the wok before it cools down too much (our stove doesn’t get uber hot).  I’m hooked again though, I’ll definitively be woking more often once again.

Intense – avalanche and rescue

Wow, this is one amazing video, recorded from a helmet cam as a heli skiier sets off an avalanche, gets burried by it and is luckily rescued about four minutes later.  All from their POV… intense stuff.   I’d reccomend reading the accompanying text first and then watching the vid.

The wafting of the weeks

Planning Permit for Addition:  Check!

I was expecting it to take a couple of weeks, going through a staff review.  However the guy behind the counter said “D’you want to do this now?” went ahead and gave me permit right then and there.  Having a complete and clear planning package helps, I think!

First Use of Own Stamp:  Check!

Very very exciting for me.

House Warming Party:  Check!

Held the party last Wednesday, and it was a blast, thanks to everyone who came out and made it a fabulous event.  I was really touched by how many people from my life were in my new house at once, cross-pollinating.  The house was packed, the conversation flowing, the tours ongoing, the discussions engaging the possibilities opening and the recommendations appreciated.  Thanks especially to Melissa for her catering and cooking expertise!

Start Teaching at New House:  Check!

The studio’s not yet built, but the classes have begun, and with my first students the kung fu and tai chi is now underway at Lakewood (not to mention my own practices).  I’m very excited, this is exactly what the house was intended for:  to forward what we (the inhabitants) are up to in our lives.

Third Ascent of Half Dome:  Check!

Trucked up to Yosemite this past weekend and had a great time hiking up Half Dome, my third visit to its peak (wow, been nine years already).  There was some threatening clouds on the horizon and overhead as we hiked up, but by the time we reached the cables they had blown away.  Always a fun and great hike.  Seemed a bit more strenuous than in previous years, though I attribute that to the fact I’ve not been working out hard lately due to some odd stomach issues (follows the old Chinese maxim:  Train one day, gain one day.  Miss a day, lose three days).  Took a whack of photographs and got some nice ones, I’ll edit them and try to get them up soon (more likely mostly the more artistic ones, I think my Yosemite page already has enough of the ‘regulars’).  Met some new folks, geeked out on some fun stuff while driving (making us miss a turn off while driving, oops!), and made some squirrel friends (including one who nibbled on my finger).  And also met on the trail two people I knew from the Bay Area (with no prior plans or knowledge they’d be up there), very amusing.

First Rain of the Season:  Check!

Er, oops.  Wasn’t expecting that one.  We have things about that while not fully exposed weren’t exactly 100% protected.  Thought we had a bit longer to go at least…

Composting Begun:  Check!

Yay!  The composter is going.  Food is going in.  Soon compost coming out.  Hooray!

Next Issue of Aurora Out:  Check!

Issue 3.5 – still going strong.

District 9 Seen:  Check!

Enjoyed it muchly.

Much Coming Up:  Check!

As always… woo!

New TMBG!

Hooray!  View the video here!

Floating on the clouds

Soooo much going on, sooooo very cool stuff, and one stunning insight that has altered the very fabric of the everyday experience.  All of which begets some very cool things happening in my life!

Which I won’t catch up on in this post because I’m a meanie.  No, wait, that’s not right… actually simply because all that good stuff is making life very full and I’ve been neglecting this in its place…. and that’s not quite done yet.  HOWEVER, I would be very remiss if I didn’t post about UP!

So, it’s Pixar.  And Pixar can do no wrong.  So has been my mantra.  Even at their ‘worst’ they are still fine films… even though UP seems like yet another unlikely concept, would Pixar reign supreme once more?

QQotd and QotD

Quasi Quote of the Day:

“Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we CAN turn any movie into an action movie, does not mean we must turn every movie into an action movie.”

Quote of the Day:

“Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing, it does not necessarily mean we must do that thing.”

– Federation President

To the bridge

Let’s start this with a very fine LotD for this is very very cool – 24 hours, filmed from a geosynchronous satellite. Watch for the moon and the sun to make their appearances, the crescent shining limb of the atmosphere, and just the light splaying across the world’s surface.  Sweet.

Space… the final frontier.  These are the voyages of the movie reboot.  Their mission:  get everyone into the theatre.  Well, they got me there.  I wasn’t terribly anticipatory about the film until seeing the last couple of trailers, and then I got very excited.  Jose, Tri, William and myself headed for a late night showing on Thursday… how did the film fare vs the trailer?

Oh, and one very big spoiler warning, I won’t be hiding anything.

Battle for Terra

Back in 2000 I went to the 3D Conference and Expo.  One of the panels I attended was a presentation of various lighting and rendering techniques given by Aristomenis Tsirbas.  His talk was pretty good, with cool tricks using spinning spotlights and the free motion blur available in Lightwave, but what blew us (all of us in the audience) away was his demo clips, especially those for the Boeing JSF X-32 design.  Only the fact I knew that the thing hadn’t flown yet made me believe what I was seeing on the screen wasn’t real.  He was good.   Then he showed us the opening vid for Mechwarrior 4 and that was just plain fun.

I didn’t know he had a full-length film in production (independent production, too) until I heard about it last week, and leapt out to see it this weekend.

Here be cool stuff!

I’m not much of a car fan. If you’re wanting me to get excited about a SAAB, you’d best be talking about the JAS 39 Gripen multirole fighter (which is indeed VERY sexy) rather than something an two wheels. But the new Tesla Model S sedan has me very excited indeed. A totally EV vehicle with a 300 mile range? 45 min recharge time or a five minute battery swap? Seats five adults plus two children AND is a of a hatchback design for large loads? Two trunks? And hits 100kph in about 5.5 seconds? I’m SOLD. The looks are pretty great too… though the bullet point list above classifies the car, looks or no, as sexxxy. 2011, please come quickly.

On a different front, GT’s Kombucha has released 3 new flavours, labelled No 3, No 7 and No 9. And they are all great!   Just the Kombucha with hints of things like elderberry, red clover and orange peel.  No 3 is very tasty, and No 9 has an interesting twist of flavours that make it very fun. Plus, you know, it’s Kombucha which is just awesome.

I got to this Ronald Jenkees vid through a roundabout way and it is way fun. The song itself is pretty funky and cool, and what I really love is the fun this guy has, he’s just into the music and even cooler than that is his HANDS. Watch those things, he just uses whatever works, they move fast, switch shape, play with the keys and just go wild and wildly unconventional. Nice.

Lastly, here’s a vid of my kung fu brother Jaime being pwned repeatedly by Sifu Lam, from many many many years ago. Jaime put it together and showed it at Sifu’s 60th birthday party. Besides the beauty of it, Sifu’s smirk at 1:42 is just priceless.

Watching the Watchers

Went and saw Watchmen last Friday (wow, a week already, almost) and had a good time, enjoyed the movie and had a great conversation afterwards.  Short review would be nicely stylized film with great art direction, some nice touches of subtle humour, good pacing and alright storytelling, and refreshing to have a film that expresses many layers and can leave one to think about both it and examine greater implications and notions.  Hopefully that is what transpires, and that the subjects of inquiry aren’t actually taken as the message…

I hadn’t read the comics before going to see the movie (though they will be loaned to me in the near future), yet paradoxically I walked into the film with a good background of knowing all about the comic from a broader context.  So not so much knowing anything about what happens in the story but knowing about the impact the comic had on the greater comic/speculative fiction genre and it’s introduction of many themes that amusingly seem old hat today (so the film couldn’t be as revolutionary now and even could seem (ironically) derivative).  I got my background way back when one of the episodes of Prisoners of Gravity did a whole show on The Watchmen.  With the movie now out it’d be great to go back and listen to the authors talk about it all… and see what’s developed since then… and thanks to the joys of the internet we can!  Here’s a link to part 1, part 2 and part 3.  Check it out, straight from the creator’s mouths.