Jean Chretien has a pretty distinctive way of talking. I think it’s the combination of being a French-Canadian, and the partial paralysis that his face has, but it definitely makes for a distinctive vocal style.

I found the Chr?tienizer online, and quite enjoyed it. It does a pretty good job on most sites. Check out your favorite, or just follow this link to see what this site would be like if it were “Jean’s Weblog” instead. (Note, that’s a different URL than you’d normally see, because the script they use strips out my stylesheets, leaving the page quite white.) Enjoy.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Look at that comic book fellow, calmly eating candy like a Spaniard! [Hands Homer a briefcase] Time for monkey to shine.” - Mr. Burns

I occasionally check my alumni email account at the U of S - they basically let you keep your email address from when you were in school. Anyway, it’s really just a big spam collector - of the hundreds of emails that I’ve gotten to that address since I re-activated it, only one has been non-spam, and it was a direct reply to an email that I sent from that account.

Well, today when I checked it, there were 165 emails waiting. Normally it collects a couple dozen in a week, so it was quite a haul. Most of them were very different than the usual spam though - they were bounces. Apparently some spammer sent out spam that claimed to come from my email address (grm129@mail.usask.ca) and a bunch of it bounced (unsurprisingly.) Normal spam, I don’t care too much about - I don’t get enough to really bother me too much. This kind of spam is terrible though. They’re not trying to sell me anything, they’re just pretending that I’m trying to sell other people things (you know, the kind of things that spammers try to sell…) I was so mad, I deleted them all right away. I instantly wished I’d kept some, so I could do some forensics on the headers, to find the source. They likely would have been long gone though, so there really wasn’t much point.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “I’m interested in upgrading my twenty eight point eight kilobaud internet connection to a one point five megabit fibre-optic T-1 line. Will you be able to provide an IP router that’s compatable with my token ring ethernet LAN configuration?” - Comic Book Guy

I don’t remember which Star Control game we had - for some reason I thought it was Star Control 2, but I don’t see how that’s possible, since I don’t think our computer at the time would have met the specs. I spotted this link to Star Control 2 being available for download online. Apparently they’ve taken the 3DO version of the game, and ported it to the PC. The download is a little steep at well over 100 megs (140? I don’t remember) but the game is pretty good. It’s in alpha right now, so it crashes every now and then, somewhat inexplicably, and sometimes it can be tough to spot the bullets in a small window on a laptop, but the melee is still super fun. I’ve played a couple of rounds every night since I got it. For more background on the game, you can go here.

It’s kind of inspired me to maybe start working on my cabinet again, since I think it would be fun to play with the arcade controls.

Considering the source code was only donated to the public domain in August, they’ve come a long way in a short amount of time. I look forward to playing the RPG part of it too, since it’s very like Starflight, which ruled.

The roads were horrible last night - so we barely made it to our class on time. The class was informative at least, though I suspect that Erin didn’t learn much, since she’s read every book she could get her hands on in the past year and a half. They sure ran through a lot of “Well this could happen” scary scenarios. To listen to the course, nothing ever goes right… I’m sure that’s not the case though - they just have to prepare you for anything that could go wrong.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “If something goes wrong…blame the guy who can’t speak English.” - Homer

Tonight is the first “pre-natal” class for Erin and I. Our December is pretty packed full of stuff, between this class, and another one, our Monday and Wednesday nights are shot. Add in the two nights a week of visiting family, and suddenly Tuesday night is the only night of the week that we’re not busy. So, then you throw in the fact that the baby’s room is still full of boxes and computers, I think we’ll be quite ready for a nap come new years.

The other thing is that Erin has 13 days of work left until she’s on Maternity leave. She starts her leave at noon on the 24th, and has taken every Friday off between now and then. I’m sure she’ll take this Friday to rest up, but then she’ll wind up using the next two to become a whirling dervish, and get the house ready for the holidays. Her dad is coming for either Christmas or New Years, and her mom is coming sometime in early January, then again when the baby is born, so that’ll be good. We haven’t made it out to Calgary since March, so neither of her parents have seen her at all this pregnancy.

The baby is pretty active lately, trying to punch his/her way out, rolling around, doing somersaults and other acrobatics. Everything in the pregnancy is going well, no signs of anything bad. Erin and I are really starting to get excited about the whole thing, even though it’s still two and a half months away. I think we’re going to get serious about cleaning out the baby’s room this weekend, though we won’t get it finished this weekend - that’s for sure.

We went to Erin’s work Christmas party on Saturday night, though I’ll leave it to Erin to talk about it. We had a good time, and were home not too late, so that we could get caught up on some badly needed sleep. I think this post is getting a bit long, so I’m going to cut it off there.

Simpson’s quote of the day : “Brace yourselves gentlemen. According to the gas chromatograph, the secret ingredient is… Love!? Who’s been screwing with this thing?” - Frink