eastvan

Yeah, it’s Christmas.  Technically it’s the 28th.

I have to work today, tomorrow and Wednesday, then bring in the new year with a bang.

Hope your holidays were excellent. 

Tom is in Lethbridge!

Hahahahahahah… Lethbridge.

I went to see ‘Dark Knight’ in the theatre, like the rest of the cool kids. I failed to see ‘Doomsday’ in the theatre. This was a total reversal of what I should have done. I should buy my friends the DVD for Christmas to make up for this.

That shit is just so crazy over the top there’s no stopping them. Put it on the shelf right next to Thunderdome. Unlike the muted greys and attempt at being ’serious’ of Dark Knight ( WHY SO FSCKING SERIOUS BATMAN DAMN GUY ), they had a lot of fun. So did I. I remember DK ( no more typing the titles ) as being why I don’t go to Van East anymoe. Their seats are shitty, and by the end of the 2.5 hour Batman I was seriously tired of it. For DD, I would only have needed the freaking edge.

For the most part I have a hard time getting into a theatre. This is because everyone I know either doesn’t dig feature films or would rather watch them on their home projector without dealing with the hassle. The last movie I got hyped about and went to see before DD was ‘Wanted’ which should have instead been called ‘DO NOT WANTED’. Seriously, two hours of LOLcat changing every 30 seconds would have been much better than that movie.

To see DD in the theatre, I would have had to go see it myself. I Should have. I only made it to DK because the hype machine made it possible for me to drag others. Wanted because I read the comic like 80 times (thanks for fscking it in the ass, you guys).

http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/blog/today_on_radio_2/

One Time.

I’ve been loving this sport lately.  Seriously – I don’t know why, but like… the second I got on a wall a few years ago, I had immediate flashbacks to climbing trees as a kid.  Same muscles, same puzzles, same instant rewards – solve the next move, and you move upwards.

I didn’t really have a climbing partner for a while there, but recently I’ve been fortunate enough to be hanging out with a crowd (or more specifically a girl, and her friends) who climb voraciously, so my opportunities to climb have been many and varied.  I’ve gotten much better at it.

Anyway – the only real downside to climbing is that within Vancouver there’s not many places to climb.  There’s Cliffhanger down on Industrial Drive, which is a short bikeride for me, but it’s $18 every time I go and frankly my endurance isn’t good enough to warrant $20 most days.  Until yesterday, I didn’t know of any free climbing walls in the Vancouver area.

Turns out there’s ONE outdoor climbing boulder in Vancouver… and it’s a block from my house!  Awesome.  I’ve lived here for four years and I’d never heard of it.  Funny thing is, neither had any of the serious climbing folks I asked.  Apparently it’s got a V0 rating (ie not difficult at all), and it’s quite artificial-feeling, but hey, for the price I’ll take what I can get.

I’m going to try it out at lunch.  Looks like fun.

I have decided that airports say a lot about the city they’re representing.

Take f’rinstance the Houston airport: tall ceilings, fat black “oh no you di’-int!” security guard ladies, cheap drinks (airport cheap, not Nevada cheap), a Disney store, a Discovery store, and no wireless.

Toronto airport: lots of coffee shops, $2 bananas and $10 salads, lower ceilings, long walks, three wireless networks but none of them free.

Vancouver airport: coffee, lots more art, reasonable prices, high ceilings with lots of light, and an airport-wide free wireless network.

Really, it all comes down to the wireless network, I think.  Airports that don’t have free wireless reflect poorly on their city.  Come on – providing free access to everyone for a year would cost less than a *single* new piece of shitty airport art.  Do you really get that much back from licensing the airport space out to *three* different for-pay wireless access providers?  That’s like making people pay to get into the public restroom, then charging an extra $0.25 for paper towels.  What the hell were you doing with those airport improvement fees?

I had a point when I started writing this the other day, but I lost it.  I think it had to do with too much airport coffee and being pissy about not having access.  Fuck, seriously, it made me want to write off the whole city.  Whatever.  Fuck Toronto anyway.

Whilest discussing methods of avoiding mosquito bites, including a patch containing tons of thiamine because mosquitoes hate that ……….

“I’m a vegetarian, so I get lots of vitamin B”

Really? Probably not.

The main source of B vitamins is meat, dairy, organ meats, that kind of thing. B12 is not found in any unfortified vegan food. I leave it to the student to research the side effects of not getting enough vitamin B12. Rest assured, if you are a long term vegan and you do not take supplements there will be problems.

I hate factory farms too. I know PETA showed you that picture of the bunnies. But you don’t have five stomachs; your canines are for ripping flesh, your hands are for killing. Your can’t make complete proteins out of grass like a cow. That’s why you eat the cow. Remember NYT guy – “Eat. Not too much. MOSTLY plants.” Animals have good stuff in them we need to thrive.

At least a lot of you fucks eat fish. We’ll leave the mercury discussion out of this, but your brains need more than plants to function and I am dog tired of hearing you say stupid shit so please at least go get an alaska roll.

I’d like to share my favourite part of my B12 research, which I found on the vegetarian society web page :

“ Human faeces can contain significant B12. A study has shown that a group of Iranian vegans obtained adequate B12 from unwashed vegetables which had been fertilised with human manure. Faecal contamination of vegetables and other plant foods can make a significant contribution to dietary needs, particularly in areas where hygiene standards may be low. This may be responsible for the lack of aneamia due to B12 deficiency in vegan communities in developing countries.”

So, I guess there’s a solution to you people’s vitamin B deficiency. Eat shit.

two days off of work to catch up with bills, laundry, filing, Burning Man preparations, groceries, cleaning and social life.

instead I ran a couple of errands but mostly just stayed home and read a book.  whatever, it was raining out.

really should have taken more time off between jobs.

Today is my second-to-last day at the office.  This means that I basically have dick-all to do except surf and write crap on the interwebs.

I went to see the new Batman movie yesterday.  Things I liked:

• Van East cinema matinee: balcony seats, Rolo, Bridge mix and a large coke: $14 total.
• Batman’s car is rad, and they blew it up
• They also blew up a bunch of other crap
• Car chase!
• The new-school Joker is way cooler than the old one
• The Joker’s disappearing pencil trick!
• The token hot girl isn’t over-the-top plastic hot, she actually seems like a real girl.  Or maybe she just reminded me too much of Princess Leia.  Either way, good choice.
• Scarecrow cameo!
• Didn’t see the Commissioner Gordon plot twist thing coming
• Two-Face’s makeup job was excellent

Things I didn’t like so much:

• Van East cinema matinee: some kind of bug kept landing on me.  ew.  ew.
• Batman’s voice.  Lame.
• Batman’s car blows up and becomes a motorcycle?
• Holy shit, the movie is 2.5h long?!
• They spent 3/4 of the movie convincing us that Harvey Dent is the shining white knight, then suddenly he’s a bad guy and “oh wait what was that name you used to call me?” “Harvey Two-Face”.  Huh?
• Batman and Token Hot Girl escape from Bruce Wayne’s penthouse party, but how did the Joker and his goons escape?
• How did Batman and Token Hot Girl survive the 30-story fall onto a car roof, exactly?
• Five movies now, when is someone going to figure out to shoot Batman in the face?

Overall opinion of “The Dark Knight”?  Not as good as “Batman Begins”, waaaaaaay better than any of the other Batman movies.  Not a waste of money to see in the theatre.

My coworker here in North Van bought a DeLorean, and retrofitted it with an aftermarket flux capacitor replica.  He brought it to work today.  He’s rad.

I watched the new Joss Whedon thing “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” last night, and LOVED it – big surprise there.  If you liked the Buffy episode “Once More With Feeling”, you should watch Dr. Horrible immediately.  It’s three episodes, and they say there might be a fourth coming though they haven’t started it yet.  Also, if you hated “Once More With Feeling” we can’t hang out anymore.

Last night a formerly close friend took his own life.

I don’t know any of the details, but apparently he was hiding a deep depression.  Word has it there was an intervention planned, but it was too late.

Not sure why I’m posting about it, but I’m still kinda stunned and can’t figure out what to do.  There’s a bit of a wake tonight that I’m going to make a point of attending, but it doesn’t seem right.  I hadn’t really been in touch with Sean other than via web forums and the rare IM conversation in at least five years, but I have very fond memories of hanging out with him, talking late into the night about geekly things, and smoking mad weed.

He was a good guy, and will be missed.