So my Mom's sister and mother are in town. They're also known as my aunt and grandma respectively. This is the first time they've been in Vancouver since both my sister and I bought our apartments. Both of them stated an interest in seeing our homes.
Now I'm not sure if this was a smart decision but I gave an extra set of keys to my apartment to my parents. This means they theoretically can come into my home any time they want though they've promised me they'd never enter my apartment unless they got my permission. Anyways, they asked me if they could show auntie and grandma my apartment on Monday morning before heading off to the casino. I said yes but with some a strict guideline. No one should attempt to clean anything in my apartment.
To ensure this guideline was followed, I made sure my webcam was enabled. I turned on both streaming and motion detection. If motion was detected, it would e-mail me. Sure enough around 11:30am I got an e-mail from my webcam. So I turned on the stream and proceeded to watch as my parents, my aunt, and my grandma took a tour of my apartment. It all looked on the up and up. My grandma did take a long, hard look inside my fridge. I also watched my aunt take some photos so she could let my cousins (her kids) see what my place looked like. Then things went a bit awry. I watched in real-time as my Mom went to my utility closet, grabbed my Swiffer, attached a wet cloth, and proceed to Swiffer my kitchen and bathroom floor. The same floors I cleaned thoroughly the day before.
Stunned at this breach of protocol, I immediately called my Mom's cell phone. The chatter was probably too loud for her to hear the ring through her purse. The phone went unanswered as I could only hopelessly watch my Mom clean my already clean floors. Only when she had put away my Swiffer could she hear her cell ring.
I watched onscreen as she answered.
"Mom, why did you get the Swiffer out? Come on, you promised."
What followed was a bit of stunned silence as Mom tried to comprehend what was happening. She asked me if I was somehow watching her. I said yes, my webcam had shown me everything. She then relayed this fact to everyone else in my apartment. I then told her where the webcam was (in plain sight right on the coffee table).
I think she was kinda embarrassed because immediately walked behind the camera so I couldn't see her anymore. She told me they left some cake in the fridge for me and they'd be leaving now. We said our goodbyes and they left in a pretty big hurry after that.
I saved a lot of still photos from the whole visit. I won't post them here out of respect for my family. I will say that when I showed them to my sister, she was very amused.
I got back my Xbox 360 today. To be more accurate, Microsoft sent back to me another Xbox 360 which I'm hoping doesn't break on me again.
The odds were very low that I would get back my own 360 in a repaired state. The options I faced were either getting a completely new console (the latest Jasper revision) or one that had been broken but since repaired. Obviously the former choice was more desirable as the Jasper revision ran cooler, consumed less power, and had all the advantages of a redesign of some 360 internal components. Also, I was hoping to get, at the very least, a console with an HDMI port that was not present on my first 360.
Unfortunately, none of what I wanted appeared on my repaired console. I essentially got back a first generation Xbox 360 that had previously died somehow and then repaired using who knows what kind of procedure. I actually don't know what they did to fix this console. Considering the first Xbox 360s had a serious design flaw, I'm curious how they fixed that problem with a repair.
My "new" console no longer has a "manufacturing date" on the back. Instead, it now has a "service date", which means the day it was brought back to life from whatever felled it in the first place. My 360 was revived on the last day of July of this year.
They extended the warranty of my console for another three months. If it decides to red ring on me again in December, I'm out of luck. On the other hand, they did give me a free month of Xbox Live.
I spent most of this evening finally playing games on my new TV. It was most pleasant.
It should be no surprise to anyone that there's a web site for just about anything on the Internet these days. So don't be stunned when you visit ArnoldHeight.com. This site is billed as the "premier Schwarzenegger 'Height-Site' on the internet". Yes, they're referring to Arnold, not to be confused with any other Schwarzenegger. They also are quite proud of "being the ONLY site dedicated to Arnold Schwarzenegger's vertical measurement".
I guess the reason behind this site is that some people dispute his claims of being a certain height. Now I really don't know how tall Arnie claims to be nor do I think he's lying about his height. The web site supposedly is there to attempt to get the definitive answer on how tall the "Austrian Oak" is. There appears to be some serious research dedicated to determining his actual height.
If you're anything like me then I feel sorry for you. No but seriously, if you're like me, you like watching movie trailers online. For the longest time now Apple's movie trailer site has been the best known place to do such viewing.
While certainly it's a good site, there are alternatives out there. One other choice is Trailer Addict. This site offers movie trailers that sometimes Apple doesn't have. Also, some of you might be adverse to using Quicktime. Trailer Addict does not use QT yet the quality of its trailers is fantastic.
I suggest you give it a look sometime. For your enjoyment the trailer above is from Trailer Addict, featuring a new movie from Michael Cera entitled Youth in Revolt.
This weekend I saw the film District 9. It's by far this summer's most unexpected hit. While you could easily imagine Harry Potter and Transformers to draw big crowds, I'm not sure one could safely say the same of District 9.
I thought the movie was great. I liked the documentary style used to tell the story. While some can't stomach the handheld nature of similar movies, it wasn't noticeable at all to me at least in D9. For a movie which has aliens as the main hook or draw, D9 has an incredibly human story behind. I think that's partly why it's a good film, despite the aliens involved, anyone can be drawn into the human element of the story. Of course the aliens look great and there are some pretty cool effects splattered here and there.
If you're from Vancouver, there's quite a local connection to D9. Director Neill Blomkamp is a graduate of the Vancouver Film School and has lived in Vancouver for ten years. He moved here when his family relocated from South Africa when he was 18. It's quite possible some of you have at least seen him downtown or around the city. With the success of this film, I believe he'll probably move from Vancouver before long.
The other local connection is the visual effects house that produced the CGI aliens for the movie. Imagine Engine, located just a few blocks from Mountain Equipment Co-op was responsible for making the on-screen aliens look realistic throughout the film. Save for one scene, all the creatures were CGI.
If you liked D9, it's interesting to note the film was based off a short that Blomkamp made just a few years ago. That short, entitled Alive in Joburg is what you see above. If look closely, you might even see a familiar face from D9.
