Semi-drunken rambings

Had a few drinks and played some sorta low-key drinking game with a bunch of guys (and one girl) tonight. It was good fun. We also had family guy, then Dane Cook playing in the background. Who is this Cook dude? Is he like the newest fad since the one featuring Chuck Norris that lasted ~2 weeks starting about 3.5 weeks ago? He is a pretty hilarious comedian (Cook, not Norris) and what makes him different from your standard funnyguy is his total out-there-ness. I am aware that's not a word, but I've had enough ale to not care enough to bother straining to find the right adjective... Anyway he made an amusing analogy, which he described as perfect, for being single. He says its like there's this big party, and like everyone cool is there, and it's totally awesome, but you weren't invited. And you only find out about it when you walk past the place, in the rain. And you kinda look in the window, and see everyone partying, and you're like, "man, I wish I was in there right now." But then one day you're actually in the party and it's like "jesus christ where's my jacket. I've had enough of this party; I've been here six years and I want to find a new party to go to..."

Well I've never dated anyone for six years, but I get the point. So ironic. I don't know how poignant the analogy is... but the first half is fairly applicable, at least.

I finally finished (yesterday afternoon) downloading the file I started in mid-January... every single James Bond movie. So these last two days have been kinda Bond crazy for me. I've watched six movies. And I have this awesome suspense music from the last one (You Only Live Twice) stuck in my head. It's not musically related to the Bond theme at all, but it's a fantastic set of four base chords upon which is built an incredible driving suspense theme for the movie. It starts out so subtly... gradually builds.... until eventually the whole orchestra is belting out these thrilling chords as the Spectre spacecraft slowly engulfs the american Jupiter orbiter...

Incidentally this is the one from which the Austin Powers series takes the image of Dr. Evil (even with a cat), the hollowed out volcano, the legions of guards in colour-coded suits, and the concept of the villain pointlessly keeping Bond alive for far too long while he keeps causing trouble. And of course a rather unnecessarily complicated scheme to get the US and Russia to have a nuclear war, in the aftermath of which he would step in and take control of the world.

Like there'd be anything left to control.

Bah! Enough semi-drunken rambling.

G

PS here's the chord progression:
A- (fifth)
F+ (minor third)
Bb- (major sixth) (and since minor, has minor root's raised leading note as it's minor third; very good suspense sound)
D- (root)
Played with a relatively big orchestra... and very well orchestrated. Vibes play all of each chord in two quick arpeggios for each bar... and flutes trill the seventh-eighth or eighth-second on each one... the buildup is sooo good! John Barry wrote the music... he did much of the early bond music. We may think of the sounds as cheesy, but really some of the chords and sounds are amazing... and sometimes beyond their time (I haven't heard such complex music in any other movies - even LoTR! However Howard Shore creates such a great depth of atmosphere with the LoTR music that I find it to be much more effective).

Lots of cool stuff!!!

Okay so another drought of a few days. Sorry grumfans, but I was very busy, and then our internet was down all day yesterday. Few things are more annoying. But all is well as I have shopped today and am now enjoying fresh grapes!

I may or may not have said several posts ago (I refuse to take the time to check) that when Laura comes over she's bringing a fieldbook in which I wrote a load of band names while bored at the dam this fall. Well here's the cream of the crop (in my opinion):
Moot Point
Nosejob
Nine O'clock Noose
Partial Deterrent
Tritium Clan*
Dancing Minions
Perverted Glory
Parsec*
Derailer
Finite State Automaton*
Silent City*
Jagged Hats
Calorimetry Bomb
Acid Basin
* = ones I really like
"Tritium Clan" is my personal favourite. It's pretty much meaningless, but I love the way it sounds.

I would now like to reiterate, with no small degree of amazement, what the folks who run homestarrunner.com point out (very briefly) in the most recent strongbad e-mail: the remarkable similarity between Strong Sad's face and the Manicouagan impact crater in Quebec. It's quite impressive, really. Around the central uplift of the crater is a deep valley, which Hydro-Quebec flooded in the 60s (this ring is not at the edge of the crater, actually it's only about a third of the way from the centre to the rim). It even looks like he's crying! I just noticed that Wikipedia's blurb on Manicouagan also notes the similarity between the crater and Strong Sad. Maybe this was noticed long ago and I just never heard about it until now, or Wikipedia was already updated, which is just as likely.

I bought tools yesterday; a set of hex (alan) keys, a screwdriver set, vice grips, and a bike lock and pump. No power tools to grunt about though. The reason, of course, is that my bike is here!!! It just needs some reassembling and stuff, and should be good to go. And yes, if I get it ready within the next hour or two I will be taking it out for a spin. And probably a good crash since we did get 20 cm of snow yesterday. I am unafraid.

Until next time (if I survive testing my bike), cheers mates!

Back after hiatus

Greetings my desperate fans.

Sorry about the hiatus, but I honestly had nothing to write about until Friday, but I've been away since then. I picked up the car at noon, and Laura (sister for those of you ignorant enough not to know) up at the airport at about 9:30 pm. We left early for the mountains. Yesterday we walked across the frozen Lake Louise, walked around and shopped in Banff, and went to the Banff hotsprings. We stayed at the Banff Centre Hotel. This morning we went skiing at Sunshine Mountain, which was awesome, and we got terrific photos from the top (see below). Tonight we're going to tour about downtown Calgary. More later, my loyal subjects!

I hate mondays

Have you ever looked at an "exit" sign, hanging placidly from the office-type tiles in a hallway, and felt the most tremendous urge to clamp your hands onto it and wrench it from the ceiling?

Today was one of those days.























PS No "exit" signs were harmed during the making of this blog.

PPS Don't forget to suggest parental advice; see previous entry for contest details and eligibility.

Drumroll please...

It's the moment you've all been waiting for! The biggest moment in popular culture since reptiles in Mexico briefly wondered what the hell an enormous burning rock was doing in the sky...
It's the results of the band name suggestions contest!

Here are the top two suggestions (my opinion) from each suggester, in no particular order:

Jenn:
No Fly Zone
Apathy Inc

Shannon:
Male Answer Syndrome
Alpha Geek

Steve:
The Elastic Band (couldn't find it on the web anywhere)
K-Rhyme

Thérèse:
Look Underneath the Mob
Falter

There can only be one... it has been a hard choice...
It's K-Rhyme!!!!!

I just think it's fantastic how it's pronounced "crime", and I absolutely cannot believe that there isn't a rapper or rap group with that name. It's perfect. I had to dissociate myself from the fact that I definitely wouldn't enjoy the music... the name is terrific!

Second Place:
Apathy Inc.

I really like this suggestion... however I trawled the web and unfortunately it is used. Actually so is No Fly Zone, Falter, and a few of the other suggestions that I didn't pick, namely:
Pint
Spontaneous Combustion
Mothers of Invention

So congratulations to Steve for winning. There is no prize for the win, other than you have my full support for the use of this band name, by you or someone else. For what that's worth. Actually you know it wouldn't be a bad idea to somehow copyright that name... it's too good. Then the self-important rapper you describe would have to pay you royalties for the use of the name. Not bad eh?

New contest: Best piece of motherly/fatherly advice ever given to you. Points for originality, depth of truth, or amusement value. I'll start with a father's most important piece of advice to his son possible:
Never pee into the wind.

So true.

Your turn!

ho hum...

I am blogging because I am supposed to be working, preparing for tomorrow's optics lab. I didn't sleep well last night. In fact I hardly slept at all; my thoughts are a turmoil. At about 4 am I typed up three and a half pages of thoughts to clear my head of them, and it sorta worked. I got to sleep by about 6 o'clock and slept fitfully through my alarm at 7:30. Damn. Oh well I didn't have a meeting or anything, just a lot to do today, which I am now avoiding very effectively.

Before more mountain pics I will provide another bunch of hilarious headlines from the Tonight Show. Although I will pique your curiosity with a list of mountains I have pictures of and have climbed, starting with most recent:
07/2005, Ben Nevis, Scotland, 4409 ft
07/2005, Scafell Pike, England, 3208 ft
07/2005, Mount Snowdon, Wales, 3560 ft
12/2004, Mount Carleton, NB, 2690 ft (snowshoed)
06/2004, Cranberry Mountain, BC, 9423 ft (*from base camp at ~7000)
07/2004, Unnamed sub-peak of Cranberry, BC, 7691 ft (base camp at ~6500)
Note: I have climbed others but have no digital photos to show for it. Also the last two may well be climbed from camps near the peaks but there are no paths on these ones, and they are covered in ice, snow, and rather steep ledges.

Now the headlines you've been waiting for:

Way to go Thérèse!

Therese climbed a mountain. I'm sure that's more than you did this winter. Well, it's certainly more than I did. Although I suppose I could concede that you may each have had your own individual personalised mountains to summit, in some metaphorical sense. But I haven't.

Thérèse... what mountain was it?!! At first I thought Carelton, or Katahdin, but I don't recognise the scenery. Wow it looks awesome!

I had the good fortune to go on a trip to Carleton, organised by Matt Hadley, at Christmastime 2004; we lived in quinzees (essentially snow forts) and snowshoed everywhere (there was a lot of snow at that time). Those who were on that trip or have done a Hadley trip at some point will remember the times fondly. Here's some photos.

This is me by the Disused Mount Carelton Firehouse.


















Quinzees are strong! We are all on top of one here. Back row L to R: Adam Hadley, Troy Yeomans, Me, Louise, Kathryn. Middle: Alex's sister (sorry name escapes me), Matt Hadley. Sitting: Alex Whaley, Pete. Photo taken by Nesha Trenholm. Missing: Ben.

It took me, Troy, and Alex jumping on it before someone punched through.





It had snowed quite a lot while we were there, and on the hike out on the third day the sun was shining on the fresh snow in the trees. It was all very nice. We bushwhacked a hell of a distance (I can't remember the number, but it was a whole afternoon's hiking) to and from the campsite, which was interesting in the snow-filled deep woods.

I now challenge each of you to procure photos from mountains/hills/speed bumps you may have climbed. Except Thérèse, she's done her bit already. I may post photos of some of the other peaks I've reached... but that's for some other time.

Don't forget to suggest band names!

You have my permission to go now. Good day to you.

hungover

I am indeed. It's not fun. With me, as many of you know, a hangover can take me out of commission for a whole day. This case is no different. However on a positive note I have finally managed to eat something without messily rejecting it, which is a good thing. My friend Andrew from UNB geol is living and working here now, and another geo-buddy from UNB, Ryan Barr, who works at a drill site 4 hrs north, is in town for the weekend. Thus it was reunion/drinking time. They were impressed by my ability to chug a pint of beer in 3.8 sec (or whatever it is, ask Joe), and thus bought me three pints at the bar to watch me do it. They weren't being malicious, it's just that it was attracting a good kind of attention. I remember little from there. I know I spent two hours hugging the toilet at the house of a friend of Andrew's, and slept on the floor there. I have no idea how much I had exactly... 5 or 6 at the house we started at, then probably four pints at the bar. They had some amusing comments today when I woke up, too. Firstly that I have two levels: zero and fucked. And secondly that I'm like superman and beer is my kryptonite; I have this amazing power (to chug it really fast) but then it utterly destroys me. And on this occasion I was totally decimated.

I had to get home from the house which was downtown, so I walked to the c-train station. I got to the first station out of the city centre and had to get off. The motion was making me feel very sick, and there are not even any garbage cans on the train. Where the hell would I go?! So I walked most of the way home, which took about 1.5 hrs because I went so slowly. Worst walk ever. I got home and slept for four hours, which was excellent.

I do this all the time; get seriously wrecked even though I know it ruins me the next day. Everybody does it; we assess the situation at the time (when we're not in the best form to assess anything really) and decide "yeah one more's not gonna hurt", but if we say that about every drink, it becomes problematic. Still, it was a great night, lots of fun, and would I do it again? Of course, every bit of it.

Here is a brilliant animation with a very catchy tune. I suppose Joe should get credit for pointing it out to me in an e-mail, but as I visit that site regularly to check for new clips, I would have found it on my own, plus I'm the one providing you with a handy link. Therefore I will take the credit on Joe's behalf. You can also click here, here, or perhaps here.

Post band name suggestions below please! (see previous entry)

Good night to you all, loyal minions.

annoying people, being annoyed, and a contest

So I've been a total ass without realising it. I've been running my bittorrent downloads almost 24/7 recently, because they've been rather slow (averaging a total download speed of like 20-30 kbps). The reason for this, I discovered, is that Shaw Cable limits your connection speed if you're using any p2p filesharing programs. The thing is, it doesn't just limit your connection to the p2p network. No, it drastically slows your entire internet connection. So basically everyone in the house has been wondering why the internet has been so slow this last week... well now we know. And as a true gentleman, I told everybody it was my fault and I will from now on only run my downloads between 4 am and about 1 pm, when usage is at its minimum. In truth only Alex my roommate was getting really screwed as he does a lot of online gaming and kept getting server timeouts late at night. Bloody Shaw. We were supposed to switch to an even higher speed connection with a local company called "cybersurf", but they sucked ass because the hookup instructions were incomprehensible and they never sent anyone around to help out. A shame because they're the fastest available in Calgary right now.

Let me tell you something that annoys me. People mixing up "effect" and "affect" in scientific textbooks. I bought this massive metamorphic petrology textbook for like $150, and in the first three pages of the first chapter I had found three grammatical errors. One of which was an effect/affect mixup. IT'S INCREDIBLY SIMPLE!!!!! AN EFFECT AFFECTS SOMETHING!!!!! This annoys me almost as much as getting caught behind someone doing 50 in the Lincoln Road 70 zone between Dunn's Crossing and Wilsey Road used to. If I'm paying that much, the editor should at least be able to read and correct the first chapter. I dread to think how many errors may exist in the whole book.

To change the tone of this post and hopefully provide some amusement for all, here's a small contest. Everyone is to think of a band name that you think is good, maybe lots. Points are for depth of meaning, wittiness, and making me laugh. Ill start with one which has been a personal favourite since I took Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology in third year:

Metamorphic Sole - It refers to the highly sheared underside of an ophiolite (a large slab of oceanic crust and mantle, thrust onto land by tectonic forces). I just like how metamorphic = change of shape, and sole sounds like soul, only not the music genre please. Very deep. Feel free to suggest the kind of music they play too; Metamorphic Soul would probably play some sort of relaxing electronica, or intellectual rock, like a perfect circle only less pretentious.

Puns get more points. I used to have a whole slew of good ones (actually they're in my field book from the mactaquac dam job). If I remember them I'll put them in later posts. This contest will be open for a while. So anytime you get a great band name in your head, just post a comment here and I'll periodically rate them. Obviously you can rate them too.

And if you read this and don't post anything, I'll hunt you down and force you to eat your favourite stuffed animal. I don't care if you don't think you can come up with anything, use your imagination! Combine random words like "synchronous" and "bloodbath" and... hey that's actually pretty good. You see we have no standards here. Here's a selection of crap off the top of my head:

Attack of the Stapler
Thermal City
Automatic Sideboard
Shocktrooper
Rumplestiltskin
Esoteric Fetidity
Fibrous Flux

You see, it's easy. And there's way better ones than that to be suggested. Of those I suppose I like the first and last ones the best. The last one only a few will get, or at least know the origins of. I have digs.

K it was long and disjointed, but it's over now. Do your thing.

Revolutions within grum's mind, and Ranier Wolfcastle.

To my complete horror I've started to become bored with the whole concept of video games, and I think I've worked out what's going on. When I have any work to do at all, video games have typically been a terrific escape. Now that I have nothing to do, ironically, my gaming motivation is weakened. It's catch-22! When I want to play games I haven't got as much time to waste, and when I do have the time I don't feel like playing! Actually that's not strictly accurate because I spend the time anyway, when I have work to do. In fact I make more progress in a video game around exam times than any other times. Suddenly I look forward to gaming when I'm supposed to be studying more than anything. Oh sure I'm playing games now, I've got loads, but I have lost the motivation to really progress, to get really far in challenging bits, in a lot of games. In fact I bought Knights of the Old Republic II (I loved the first one so much) like two weeks ago, and actually haven't even opened the box.

Ok enough mourning the loss of my gaming motivation. I'm sure it's temporary, and will return when the workload increases. Here's some of my favourite memories of Ranier Wolfcastle (please remember the accent. except in the first one where he's a kid):

[singing to oscar meyer tune] "My bratwurst has a first name, it's f-r-i-t-c, my bratwurst has a second name, it's s-c-h-n-a-c-k-e-n-b-f-e-f-f-e-r-h-a-u-s-e-n-..." fade out

[stand up comedy]
"Have you eva noticed how men always put the toilet seat up?... That is joke."
random: YOU SUCK MCBANE!!!
[Wolfcastle goes insane and attacks the audience with heavy weaponry]

James Lipton: Welcome back to Inside the Actor's studio. We've met Rainer Wolfcastle. Now, can we meet...McBain?
Ranier:Let me get into character. (concentrates, but when he speaks, he doesn't look or speak differently) Okay, I'm McBain. (audience applauds and Rainer pulls out two handguns) All right, Mendoza! I'll give you the Maxwell circuit if you put down my daughter!
Lipton:Very nice. (Ranier shoots him twice) It's a pleasure...to eat your lead... good sir.

Ok I'm done for today.

All work and no play makes grum a dull boy

Well that title is highly accurate and totally irrelevant; I have become the laziest person in history. Oh I was told it would happen. The first bit of a masters' is generally easy apparently, as we don't have to be done for 2 years. In my case (as indeed it is for many geologists), all I have to do basically this term is read a lot of papers on rocks near my field area, and prepare for a field season. Part 1 is sorta underway, part 2 is 50% complete. By that I mean I've found a field assistant, and all I have to do now is plan the whole summer. Jeez I'm pretty much 99% complete, surely... why the hell am I bothering to even get up today?

And that's kinda the point I've been getting at. Since my last post I have done sweet FA. Slept in till 1 every day, spent my time playing games and watching my downloaded movies and tv shows. I went for a couple of walks because I felt I do need to exercise before all my muscles atrophy and I become unable to open the fridge or even lift a spoon to my lips. Dying that way is, I have decided, the worst possible way to die. Starvation when the food is that close... aaaaargh!

But nevertheless, the slack continues. Give a slacker free reign and nothing to do, and he'll find ways to take slack to a whole new level. This includes spending all day in the dressing gown, not even bothering to cook (and I mean even so much as heating a canned stew), and staying up till 4 or 5 am trying to understand some of the more complicated points of the web (wtf is an NNTP server and how do I find the one provided by my ISP?). Also my room is a horrendous mess. It's full of things like empty toaster boxes and plastic bags, and there are two empty juice cartons sitting beside me. My toaster is full of beer caps. I don't know how they got in there, I haven't had a beer since Monday and I made lots of toast yesterday, at which time there were no beer caps in there. I guess they fell off this desk edge into it. Oh yes and my toaster is indeed in by room on the floor by the desk, because I am lazy and I want to make toast (and butter and eat it) while at the computer. No I can't take two minutes of my otherwise empty day and go to the kitchen to make the toast. My time is important people!!! Sunk has always said how I manage to slack to a ridiculous degree and yet somehow excel, and here there isn't even anything to excel at. Maybe TAing counts.

They say sloth is the mother of invention but I haven't invented anything yet. Maybe I need to give it a bit more time.

Can't today, the reason I'm up 6 hours earlier than usual is that my supervisor is going to teach me how to use an electron microprobe, a device with which I am already quite familiar. Later on we'll be looking at an X-ray Diffractometer, and that will be more useful as I've never even seen one before. These are both devices that cost $25 an hour to use and render the optical microscope obsolete. However, I must still teach the intricacies of its operation to my students.

So after my two learning sessions that last from 9 to 10 and then from 11 to 12 am, I'll be so tired I'll need to come back here and watch more tv shows. Maybe I'll post again. The only reason I haven't been posting is because truly nothing has happened. Some movies gradually came in on Azureus. Oh yeah, and yesterday I changed which port it uses in hopes of getting a faster connection speed, which didn't work. A truly thrilling lifestyle then.

It'll be better when I get to where I'm meant to be... only three months or so to go!

Cheers mates!