Haven’t posted since Tuesday, really just because I don’t know what to say.

I’ve heard some pretty stupid things said in the past day, most of them racist/hateful. I’m not sure when we reverted back to that state of mind, but I wouldn’t miss it if it went away for good. Yes, there are some crazies out there, and yes, they need to be stopped, but you didn’t see people calling for the bombing of parts of the US after McVeigh was discovered to be behind the Oklahoma bombing. Hell, the militia wasn’t all bombed back to the stone age either. Killing a bunch of innocent people won’t make the situation any better. The terrorists have succeeded at sowing fear and hatred.

Anyways, on to slightly happier things. The 5100 is a fun toy, we’ve enjoyed it a little since Monday night, though the real test will come when I can watch a football or hockey game on it. Hopefully that won’t be too long off.

Erin found out that she can get an interest free loan for a computer purchase (though work) It’s a taxable benefit, but when it’s taxed as a 4% loan, you’re talking a pretty good interest rate. I think we’re probably going to get a laptop after we’ve paid off the cruise, which is just over a month away…Of course the cruise might not happen if global thermonuclear war is the result of Tuesday morning’s events.

I’ve only noticed a couple of comments in the forum, and one in the comments section. Not a big deal, but I think I’m going to try and re-work the comments section. That free comment engine that I’m using isn’t very good. The problem is that I don’t want to pay for hosting, and @home doesn’t really offer any way to host my own comment system. I’ve found a place that does free php hosting, but it’s “unavailable” currently.

Simpson’s quote of the day - “I can’t believe that worked” - Snake, after his Wallet Inspector gag

The new receiver came in last night, so we got to play with it a bit. Too bad we don’t have CNN, cause that means that I won’t be able to record the aftermath of the WTC explosions. I find it a little fascinating, and a lot frightening. They keep saying how well planned this attack must have been, but really it wouldn’t have taken that much planning at all - if you’re going to hijack one plane, might as well hijack lots of planes.

Most of this floor went down to watch the proceedings on CNN, kind of as-it-happens news type of thing. This thing is big like the Challenger explosion, big like JFK’s assassination.

Simpsons quote of the day - “Whoah momma” - Bart

Well, the weekend in Edmonton was a lot of fun, though I’m beat now. The waterpark in the West Ed was a lot of fun, but very tiring. Basically I think I probably did 100+ flights of stairs up, and a bunch of slides down. I didn’t do much shopping (really, none at all if you must know) basically we went out for food & drinks, hit the waterpark, went to the amusement park, and played a little glow-in-the-dark minigolf. Overall, a pretty fun weekend, though I wish Erin had joined us for a bit of it at least (though I don’t think she would have enjoyed Hooters ;)

I checked the tracking site for the 5100 that’s in the mail, it’s apparently in Saskatoon, on a truck, being delivered to my house, though because I won’t be there to sign for it, I suspect that I’ll have to pick it up after 6, which I will do rather promptly (I suspect)

On a totally unrelated note, those of you who have heard about the evils of the US’s Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DCMA) which is in complete disregard of the basic rights which most democratic societies are based on, you should get informed, because (not to sound alarmist) it’s a very 1984 law. Well, anyways, Canada apparently has a similar law coming along the approval process. Normally, I wouldn’t say anything about something political on my site, but it’s an awful law, that doesn’t belong in our country. The only interests that it serves are those of the large content producing corporations, while stamping out such rights as fair use. Under this new law, if I bought a CD that had some rudimentary protection on it, and I “broke” the protection in order to put MP3 versions on my hard drive at work, so I can listen to music without lugging around dozens of CD’s, I’d be a criminal, and could end up in jail for a good chunk of my life - just for using something which I paid cash money for the right to use. Who benefits - the artists who produce the content? No, just the companies who “support” them. I don’t think this law will last long on the books if it does get passed, but I would rather it didn’t get passed in the first place. Anyways, here’s a link with more info, and an address you can email to express your disgust/displeasure at having your individual human rights trampled on. I urge you to read up on it, because we’re just a few steps away from corporate “thought police” arresting you for thinking bad things about Future Shop.

Enough ranting.

Check out the forum, and the “Comments” section which will hopefully be replaced by something better in the very near future…

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Worst Episode Ever” - Comic Book Guy

I just read an article about how ~1 million kids jumping up and down for a minute produced an earthquake. Pretty bizarre.

Pretty cool - Google apparently has a pig-latin interface. Now, Babelfish needs a pig-latin -> english and english -> pig latin translator.

We’re heading out for Edmonton today after lunch - hopefully we’ll get out of town around 1:00 or so. Should be a fun trip.

My phone was flashing when I came in this morning - two callers and 5 messages - how does that work. Not only that, but all the messages were hang-ups. Plus, one of the phone numbers was “Unknown Caller” while the other one was a number that I didn’t recognize. The mystery deepens, because I couldn’t even find the number in the reverse lookup online.

I suppose they’ll call back if it’s important :)

We put the downpayment on the cruise on Wednesday, so we’re committed to going now I guess :) I should check with the travel agent to see what my booking number is, because Princess allows people to book excursions online as well as check on their cabin placement. Apparently people find out that they’ve been bumped to a higher class cabin online sometimes.

I’ve made some changes to the site, some based on my ideas, some based on requests, and one in particular based on an oversight. I added a comment feature (really, it’s just linking to an offsite comment provider) that I’m not totally happy with, but it’ll do the job for the time being. I also added a Forum, which I’m relatively happy with, except for the ads and stuff. Lastly, I added a “Powered By Blog” button, which was apparently missing from the site. This site is indeed powered by Blog, and I have Fahim to thank for writing it, and inspiring me to do this page.

I also tweaked the stylesheet a bit, because apparently it looked pretty horrid in Netscape 4.7 (Why are you still using NS 4.7, it’s brutally out of date :-)

I’m open to other suggestions, and I’m currently looking into a different comment system, because the one that I’m using is a little clunky.

Oh yeah, Simpsons quote of the day… “Wait a minute - this sounds like Rock and or Roll” - Reverend Lovejoy

Another quick update - I got a call from Phil at Ku-Sat to let me know that the 5100 shipped today… Should be here tomorrow or Monday!

I hope it’s not here tomorrow, cause we’re leaving for Edmonton around 1:00.