Today I made the trek out to Chilliwack for a mini-BBQ at my sister’s house in honour of father’s day. It was great seeing my family again, and I hung out long enough to play a few board games. My dad and my nephew, Derek Happy Father’s Day buddy. ...

Last night I went down to Malone’s on Seymour street for a few after-work drinks with Kasia, Chris and Cisco. Afterwards, we decided to make our way down Granville (which eventually brings me home) and stopped by the Granville room for a bottle of wine. I ran into my old friend Brigitte and some of her friends which was a nice surprise. Unfortunately, I drank more than I should have, and had a nice headache most of the day. Tomorrow I’m going to head into work for a bit and catch up on a few things, and then Sunday I’m heading out to Chilliwack to hang out with my family for father’s ...

As I was browsing the internet tonight and accidentally ran into a photo of mine on a website. So, while I was there, I figured I might as well see where else some of my photos have ended up. Chris Blackburn used one of my HDR shots in a blog posting [A shot of Boris used in a blog entry 2. My HDR shot of Kitsilano used on the Kitsilano.ca website My aurora shots on the NASA website A photo of Rebecca on her blog Las Vegas Travel Blog](http://www.buffmuthers.com/~midge/archives/2007_05.html) As I was tracking these down in Google, I realized how nice a feature it would be if Flickr had some ...

Back in December of 2000, while home in Chilliwack visiting my family for Christmas, I made the digital plunge. I was in London Drugs, looking around the electronics section for something bright and shiny to make me happy, and my eyes settled on the first real section of digital cameras ever to hit the market. For the most part, most of those cameras were nothing more than glorified webcams — they took grainy photos, and really didn’t have any options. However, one in particular stood out above the rest. It was the Nikon Coolpix 880, and it became my first digital camera. I shot all my photos ...

As you can see, things look a little different around here after tonight. I got tired of looking at my old theme about two days after I put it up, but just didn’t feel like doing anything about it. So tonight while watching Million Dollar Baby, I decided to take a stab and making it a bit different. It’s nothing fancy — all I did is start with the default WordPress theme and add a few things here and there. The main header is a HDR sunrise I did off my patio about a month ago. Gravatars are broken right now, but since Keira and I seem to be the only ones using them, it’s not really any ...

Nearly two years ago, I went out with my dad and step-mom and picked up a high-definition TV at future shop. Of course, having a high-definition TV without any sort of high-definition feed is rather pointless, so the first thing I did is pick up a HD cable box from Shaw. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize at the time just how little TV I usually watch. Between the HD cable option and my “high-speed” internet, I shell out around $110 a month, which is pretty stupid considering I watch only around one TV show a week if I’m lucky. So, I think tomorrow I’m going to call up shaw and finally ...

So, I gotta hand it to my pal Kris — he’s managed to get me interested in something I never thought I’d be interested in again — film photography. Kris is a really awesome fashion photographer here in Vancouver, and his stuff never ceases to amaze me. What’s interesting about Kris, and a variety of the local photographers I’ve met recently, is that they have started shooting film again. Which is sort of surprising, given the focus local photography shops seem to place on digital nowadays (I called several local stores recently to talk about film, and most of them didn’t even have ...

if (is_single()) { ? digg_url = 'http://digg.com/people/The_Dupe_Of_The_Century_Diamond_Engagement_Rings'; } ? While sitting on the couch tonight waiting patiently for my groceries to magically unload themselves into the cupboards, I stumbled upon a very interesting article on the dupe of the century — diamond engagement rings. I encourage everyone to read that article. Before I get into it, I’m going to state, for the record, that my ex-girlfriend and I fought over this topic on more than a few occasions. You see, about four months into the relationship, I started noticing a lot of wedding ...

I haven’t been much of a blogger lately, and I’m not sure why that is. I’ve had a lot of ideas about what would make for some interesting entries, but lately with everything going on I just haven’t really been able to write anything. Hopefully I’ll start to change that. I spent the weekend up at Cultus Lake with John and Rebecca, and I had a great time – check out Rebecca’s entry for all the details. We drank an impressive amount of booze considering we were there for only two nights. Most of my immediately family made it up for a visit, and it was good to see them all again. ...

Well, I haven’t hung our with my pal Mel in quite a while (actually, I haven’t seen her since my birthday). Tonight she invited a pile of people down to the Trap and Gill near my place. I showed up, and definitely drank my share. It was cool seeing Mel and company again, and I had a great time. I’ll be camping up in Cultus tomorrow with Rebecca and John. If you’re close by, bring beer. ...

Last night I pulled my camera off the shelf, blew a layer of dust off of it, and headed down to gastown for a quick photowalk. Kris Krug has done a pretty stellar job of organizing these from time to time, and it’s a good chance for people to get together, learn a few tricks, and hang out with good company. We strolled around the tracks is Gastown, then made a loop around and came back through Blood Alley. Afterwards, we stopped at the Six Acres for some beers, and then eventually went to Kris’ house for a little wine. I took tomorrow off, and I’m heading up to Cultus Lake with a few friends ...

In the last couple days, I’ve read several reports of people discovering embedded user data in the new DRM-free versions of music on iTunes. While I’m not suprised, having embedded user data within these files is essentially a form of Digital Rights Management, which at the very least points to false advertising by Apple regarding these new music files. I’m quite certain that a utility will exist shortly to strip it out, should people want to, but Apple is being very guarded about these files and exactly just how DRM-free they really are. I personally have no problem with my user data being ...

Jesus.. My apartment wasn’t made to survive the summer.. It’s currently 26C inside, and I’m sweating to death despite having all my windows and patio door open. I made the big mistake on Friday night of heading down to Bryght for a little party, and ending up drinking myself into a coma. I didn’t wake up until around 3pm the next day, which is surprising considering how hot it was inside.. I guess all one can really do in this heat is crack a few beers, kick your feet up, blare some music and take it all in stride.. Last night at around midnight, while in the middle of watching a pretty ...

Yesterday Apple released verison 7.2 of iTunes which finally gives users the ability to download DRM free versions of songs from iTunes. The added bonus is that you can also download 256 kbps AAC versions of the files instead of the 128 kbps AAC versions. So, before I actually go into the experience, I’d have to say I was slightly hesitant about this. When people think 128kbps, they automatically think of the old MP3s. And at 128kbps, MP3 files are fairly close to CD quality (for most people), but on my stereo at least, I can notice slight distortions. However, AAC is part of the MPEG4 standard ...

I remember back around Christmas, Sony announced that they were unable to meet the holiday demand for the PS/3. I suspect part of this may have been artificial, since the resulting huge line-ups across the country showered the company with press everywhere. Unfortunately, those events lead to the deaths of a few people in incidents that occurred while in the long line-ups in sometimes cold, outdoor conditions. During that period, I had passively walked into whatever electronics store I could find, and asked if they had a PS/3 for sale. The answer was always no. So here we are, nearly six months ...

On Friday, I met up briefly with Rebecca down at the Six Acres in Gastown for a few drinks on a patio. It was a good way to start a Friday afternoon, and since I had only woken up a few hours prior, I was definitely in the mood to drink and grab something to eat. Afterwards, we went down to the west-end for some pizza, and to hang out with John, who was busy playing with Dave Olsen’s new microphone on his computer. A bunch of my new blogger-type friends (most of which I originally ran into down at Northern Voice) were down at DemoCamp the other day, but unfortunately I wasn’t feeling up to ...

In the last year I’ve attempted, on several occasions, to put together a few internet-type sites that interest me. Unfortunately, I haven’t really gotten that far with any of them, mainly due to lack of time and an underestimation of the time involve for these projects by me. So, instead of completely adandoning some of them, I’m going to put out a call for help on a few and see if there’s any interest in teaming up to finish a few of these off. So, if you think any of these would interest any of your friends, let me know. I think we have plenty of technical help (although if you want ...

After I broke up with my ex-girlfriend, I decided that for the first time in a long time, I wanted to live relatively close to work. Some people argue that if you had to choose, you should always choose to live where you play (as opposed to living where you work). But, I spent the last few years having nearly an hour commute in each direction to go to work, and I was just sick of it. So, I found a place downtown, and here I am, after nearly two years. I have a pretty sweet deal down here – I pay $1200 for an 800 sq. ft. apartment about 20 steps from the water, in a relatively nice area of downtown. ...

Last night I ventured out for dinner briefly down to Granville Island with Jason, and managed to enjoy a bit of the sunshine. I haven’t really been sleeping that well lately (yesterday I didn’t get to sleep until 8am, waking up sometime around 3pm), so I think my lack of sleep has finally caught up with me (I was up at 5am this morning after only sleeping a few hours). Maybe it’s the drugs leaving my system, or maybe just some stuff on my mind — I’m not sure. The good news is that in about three hours I’ll be down at UBC getting my stitches out. I’m excited because I’ll finally ...

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