Category: Uncategorized

Just in case B A Start comes before Royal Toybox on your daily read list Les Garvois have had their baby. Thanks mucho to Esther for keeping us all posted. I have to confess to being on serious tenterhooks after a call involving some kind of broken water.

But you didn’t come to B A Start for baby talk. Instead, I offer you my personal review of Ultraviolet.

Imagine a movie based on a comic book. I don’t mean ‘based on a comic-book character’, I mean written and filmed as if taken directly from the pulpy pages of an illustrated periodical. All of the super-cheesy lines kept. Lots and lots of action which, while good-looking, doesn’t have any purpose. Yick.

Maybe if the fighting was better I would have enjoyed it more, or if I had seen the effects on the big screen… no. No no no. It was just awful.

Ever been so angry you can’t see? It’s awesome.

Happy Independence Day everyone. I love America.

In the spirit of this celebration, I have a recommendation for you: start watching the History Channel’s mini-series The Revolution. It’s one of the best documentary series I have watched, particularly due to the variety of POV’s brought to the table by the experts they interviewed. That West Point dude is hardcore.

Also here are some hi-res images of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution etc. They’re JPEG, which is weak sauce, but still. Patriots delight.

Patriotism in a time as frustrating as ours can be dangerous. People think you’re crazy or stupid or evil. Here’s my deal: my love America is for the ideals, not necessarily all current practices. Inalienable human rights. The self-evident truths. A more perfect union. Above all, liberty.

When our elected leaders do things in accord with our ideals, I applaud them. When they do not, I malign them, and as I do I take comfort in the fact that they can be voted out of office. We don’t have to wake up each morning and hope that the dictator dies soon, and that his son will be better to us than he is.

A difficulty comes when the will of the people is wrong, by which I mean it does not live up to the aforementioned ideals. Thus a republic can be better than a democracy, but only when the leaders are virtuous. A healthy mix of both seems to be working out fairly well.

Thus, I urge you to celebrate our freedoms and liberties today. Wave a flag and love the nation that should be, and mostly is. If this were a speech, I believe I would have the audacity to recite the preamble to the Constitution right now, but instead I’ll just link to it.

At the end of Superman Returns, Jason is wearing Aquaman pajamas. Are we to assume, then, that Singer’s next movie will be Aquaman? Or at least the costumer’s?

Please enjoy this wild rumor.

Once upon a time, an official NHL website had pictures of the redesigned Sabres jersey, something for which the people of the hamlet of Buffalo had been pining. A silly boy posted the pictures accidentally.

“O, no,” the boy said. “I will surely be whipped until my skin is in tatters and fed to the boars!”

He leapt up and removed the pictures, but it was too late. They had been stolen.

“Joy!” shouted the people. “A new logo!”

“The blue and the gold are there,” they said.

“It looks like Barney Rubble’s hair,” they said.

“It is both old and new,” they said.

“It looks like poo,” they said.

What the people did not know is that the new logo was enchanted, drawn by a wise old man who lived alone in a mountain cave. Men who wore the sign became faster and stronger, and their weapons would not break. They beat devils and lightning, hurricanes and maple leaves, panthers and finally flames to steal the silver chalice and return with it to the little hamlet. And the people of the hamlet were happy.

Aside from the Geek Day status that a comic-book movie opening receives, today marks the end of Ordinary Time. After tonight’s festival a new season begins, a season of rebirth.

Yes, going to see the new Superman movie is going to be roughly equivalent to a deeply religious experience, whether I like the film or not. The only son of a benevolent creator sent to Earth to save us from ourselves? The most powerful force in the universe walking among us, as one of us? How doesn’t everyone feel this way?

Finally got around to picking up Brain Age for the DS, the software that claims to be a good daily regimen for keeping the grey matter in good shape. While it doesn’t come out and say “prevents Alzheimer’s” anywhere, that’s certainly the idea. Three things:

1: It’s actually quite fun. I wouldn’t have thought doing 100 simple calculations as fast as possible would be enjoyable, but I guess I should have.

2: Nintendo’s got to be laughing all the way to the five-story italian-plumber-shaped piggy-bank they keep their yen in. The game’s selling as if it was hotcakes, and a whole new demographic has opened up. I mean, go to the site and look at the marketing. These people ain’t playing Mario Tennis.

3: I’m discovering that a good alternate title could have been “Handwriting Age”. O, Mrs. Robinson! Why did I not listen and learn decent handwriting from you? I live in shame.

Here’s something cool I saw on Digg. Yes I know that sounds like spam.

Some time ago, an unclaimed pair of very stylish sunglasses sat on the counter in the men’s room near my office. Even without close observation, one could see that they were of great value. There are many services offered by my company, but a Lost-and-Found is not one them, so I let them lie there untouched. Later that day, I saw them being sported by one of the Housekeeping staff, oddly disparate with his dingy uniform.

Months passed as per normal, and I did not realize that I had not seen the housekeeper since that day. This was made abundantly clear to me today, when I saw this fellow in the corridor wearing the same sunglasses. There was something different about him, something difficult to place one’s finger on. Something about his gait perhaps, or his facial expression? Or perhaps that he was dressed in full pimp gear, complete with hat, cane, and bright red suit. I do not use hyperbole when I tell you his outfit looked very much like this, but substantially more pimp.

Apparently I missed my chance to don the charmed glasses that would transform me from my mundane self into a natty pimp. I feel okay about it, though, as I have received mixed reports on whether or not that profession is easy.

Elmwood needs a damn post office, or at least a UPS Store.