The Blue Jays released Frank Thomas before his anger could be too much of a disruption in the club house. Despite hitting some home runs, Thomas' bat speed had slowed and was hitting .167 which most of the Blue Jays pitching staff could hit if pressed into service so I am not sure why he is so surprised. I imagine Tampa Bay will pick him up for 30 games or so but other than that, I think his career is done. While I wasn't a big fan of his signing in Toronto, I liked him in Chicago and Oakland. Too bad he had lost so much bat speed by the time he had gotten to Toronto.
Even he didn't bring much offense to Toronto, he did leave them with a pretty good promotional commercial.
I finally indulged my inner geek and bought Dilbert: The Complete Series on DVD. Some of the episodes remind me of my life more than I would like to admit.
While I read it daily about ten years ago, I had stopped reading it after a while. The television show is more based on the strip than a animation of the strip.
I never was able to watch the show that much while it was on television but after watching it on DVD, it is quite funny. Of course it's fatal flaw is the demographic who is most likely to get the humor are those that don't watch a lot of television.
Anyways, I found the complete series on sale for $17 which makes it a pretty good buy. Wendy and I appreciated the office humor and Mark likes the idea of a an evil dog who wants to rule the world. I appreciated it enough to bookmark Dilbert.com again and start enjoying the strip.
There are a lot of reasons for doing this but I am starting a new project a few of you might find interesting. It is a documentary about life in the inner city of Saskatoon (which is now famous as the second most dangerous place to live in Canada). Those that live there, a look at how some of the NGOs and government agencies are doing to help them. Some friends are helping out as well which should be fun and several agencies, elected officials, and others have been quite receptive to it. In some ways, it is Saskatoon's version of a Westside Story.
Doing a project like this involves a lot of decisions. I am shooting it on mini-DV as I needed a camera cheap enough to give up if it avoided a serious conflict but then I needed a external mic, lights, and a external hard drive to store it on. As far as aspect ratio, we are going to distribute it via YouTube but I decided to go 16:9 as I also want to distribute it for computers and for the iPod/PSP.
Why video?
I was torn over this as I am more comfortable writing or even with a still camera but I thought back to a series of columns in the now defunct Saskatoon Free Press about the west side. Stories of prostitutes, homeless people, and addicts and I thought he was making it all up. I am hoping that doing a documentary makes this seem a little more real to people and hopefully change a couple of incorrect stereotypes along the way. If you are interested in helping out, let me know as I will be shooting video over the spring, summer, and fall and there is a lot to get done. I'll keep you posted.
An introduction to what it is like living on Skid Row in Los Angeles.
Alongside Skid Row's hustlers, transients, and cops are a lesser known population of children, social servants and religious workers whose daily lives play out on LA's most dangerous city blocks. This is a five part series on YouTube telling their stories.
Some of you have asked how to download a video off of YouTube. I found a website called vixy.net which works when the server isn't that busy but they have created a beta downloader that works pretty good that you can download for free. It has some bugs but it downloads and converts video to mp4 format which works for your iPod or PSP just fine. Now it doesn't work for Google Video but many of the videos can be downloaded right from the site.
Say whatever you want about American politicians but I think one area that Canadian political leaders have them beat is our ability to mock ourselves. This video comes to you via The Hour and is a wonderful mockery of Stephane Dion's answer to the question of "When are you going to force an election?".
While I can't find it on YouTube, I think the best of all time may be Prime Minister Jean Chretien's "Power Lunch" with Rick Mercer at Harveys in the lead up to the budget.
While Clinton did make that one funny video of himself eight years ago, which was well received, I haven't seen anyone else do a good job of making fun of themselves in Washington.
Kyle Martin IM'd me and while we were chatting, asked me what the video was that was shown to kick of Soularize. I had no idea but after looking and looking I finally found it.
So what did I find?
"The slam poet/tech artist/paper sculptor Rives does eight minutes of lyrical origami, folding history into a series of coincidences ... all ยป surrounding that most surreal of hours, 4 o'clock in the morning. This elusive hour, both very late and very early, appears often in art in literature as a way to describe the most extreme states of affairs. Rives -- aided by a nimble mind and extensive online research -- reveals 4 a.m. as an iconic moment, drawing hilarious historical connections.
The shorter version is it is a funny link worth clicking on.
For more information about [CML] or to receive an application form, please contact the [CML] director, Jordan Donald, by e-mail [jordan@frwy.ca] or by phone: 905-929-0890.
The Hour Blog with George Stroumboulopoulos on CBC Television
I have hesitated to blog about this but The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos has a blog. The reason I have been hesitant is because most television show and news blogs are terrible. The Hour's blog is actually quite good and would be a great blog even if it wasn't attached to The Hour and CBC.
In addition to a blog, they seem to get what most American networks do not and that is having a YouTube page is a great service to its viewers. Here are some to check out.
I got an e-mail angrily stating that people like me need to stop talking about the emerging church and start talking about "faith". I don't know if this is what he had in mind but here we go.
No wonder why USC has so many players going in the first round of the draft. I think if I had trained with Chuck Berry, this would be a NFL players blog. Why was I never taught the "pincher" technique?
I am not a car nut by any means but I always said that I would love to own a Porche 944, until today when I fell in love with the Bugatti Veyron, which has a top speed of 253 mph/407 kph although at that speed, it's mileage is 2.1 mpg.
The baseprice is a rather steep, $1,440,800 but you know, at 0% financing, over five years, you would only have to pay, $24,013 a month.
Maintenance will be possible at Bentley dealerships, but repair service will require a flown-in mechanic, whom the company promises will be available 24 hours a day.
According to Jeremy Clarkson, the host of Top Gear, if the McLaren F1 were allowed to reach 120 mph before the Bugatti started, the Bugatti would still be the first to reach 200 mph.
On another Top Gear episode (broadcast on 4 February 2007) James May tested the car's top speed of 253 mph at Ehra-Lessien in Germany, which has a straight piece of track of 5.5 miles long, suitable for the test. Upon reaching the top speed of 407 km/h (253 mph), James May mentioned that he was "covering one football pitch every second" . In the after-comments section he said that the whole experience was rather disorienting, as he thought he had stopped and was ready to open the door when he looked at the speedometer and it was still at 70 mph. It is not known if this was his first test around the track or if he had many beforehand.
A couple of ads from the Canadian Forces that caught my attention lately. Basically the idea of the word "fight" being used thoughtout the commercials as a recruitment tool for a country that is more proud of being peacekeepers than warriors. I wonder if it is a post-Afghanistan shift in Canada's thinking. I would be interested to read about the response to these ads.
Of course you can read the political response here.
Just a side note, I searched for this on YouTube and Google Video and could not find the ad. It wasn't until I went looking on just plain old Google that I found it which is really odd.
Video of Zinedine Zidane headbtting Marco Materazzi
What was Zidane thinking. He may have cost France the World Cup. What a way to end your career. According to Yahoo! Sports, he has lost his temper before.
A player of uncommon skill and technical poise, Zidane's command of almost any ball, his vision and penchant for big-game goals has earned him comparisons to the greatest creative talents in soccer.
His temper has been another matter.
Playing for Juventus five years ago, Zidane butted Jochen Kientz of Hamburger SV in a Champions League match, also earning a red card.
Eight years ago, Zidane was red-carded for stomping on an opponent while playing Saudi Arabia. At this World Cup he collected two yellow cards and was suspended for France's third group match against Togo.
The video of author/blogger/theologian/church planter David Fitch speaking at The FRWY.ca for a Resonate Echo. Thanks to Amy Panton and Jared Siebert for putting this all together. Don't worry, I am not David Fitch, I was just doing some opening remarks ;-)
Alexander Ovechkin's goal against the Phoenix Capitals is being called one of the greatest goals ever scored. The Washington Post has a step by step chart on how he scored the goal. There is video here.
I had uploaded this before but it got deleted when I changed servers. Here is the Me Church video. Enjoy. You can purchase a full sized version here for $10.
