Day 3: It was all too much to bear. I called in sick and spent Friday at home, shivering. Where the TV used to be, there was now a gaping void that somehow seemed to draw my eyes to it. Its very absence became a presence that dominated the room. I couldn't help but stare into that space, as if it were a black hole, sucking my mind deeper, deeper down into the black gravity well of insanity, from which nothing escapes. So I made chocolate chip cookies, which seemed to help.

Later in the afternoon, I fabricated a TV surrogate. That is, I cut a rectangular hole in a large cardboard box and placed that where the TV used to be. For hours, I sat immobile on the couch and stared at the surrogate. Unfortunately, it was only showing reruns of that MASH episode where Burns thinks he's getting a promotion. You know the one. The same episode over and over. Thankfully, Rob and Lola dragged me (forcefully) away from the surrogate to a more healthy environment. Once at the Jolly Alderman, I began to feel more like myself.

The pub has a giant projection TV. I shouldn't have, but I watched part of the hockey game out of the corner of my eye while pretending to talk to Rob and Lola. I shouldn't have. I'm a bad, bad person.

Here's some weirdness from east of Prince George, BC, as reported in the Vancouver Sun: "60-acre spider web baffles biologists".

Day 2: By the end of my second evening without television, I began to hallucinate. I thought Alex Trebeck was quizzing me on my knowledge of great Swiss military tacticians, and I kept losing money when I forgot to phrase my response in the form of a question. My reprieve came when Worf burst in and introduced Alex to his bat'leth. What is "the sound you make when you're impaled by a Klingon blade", Alex? I think I got that one right.

I eased my symptoms by watching This Hour Has 22 Minutes on my computer. They showed two episodes in a row, so that particular hour actually had 44 minutes. It's less economical, but I still have 16 extra minutes at the end of it.

In the end, I never did start reading that book that's on my coffee table. I'll make that tomorrow's project.

Had lunch at Robson Sushi with my brother, Mike.

That's him.

Lately I've become aware of how much of my life is lost to the television. How many nights have I spent channel-flipping mindlessly? What could I have accomplished had I turned it off?

Thus began my reintroduction to reality. Two nights ago, I removed my TV and DVD player to a safe location, with visions of sitting in my favourite armchair with a cup of something hot and having a really good read. Or spending some quality time writing that story I've had in the back of my mind. Or having the freedom to throw on my jacket and step out, regardless of which episode of Enterprise is on. I could live my life without needing to know if Giles will have his head lopped off or if Marge will have her boobs done.

Yesterday was my first full day without television. As I had some cleaning to do, I decided to turn on the? Doh!

Anyway, I distracted myself by rearranging the furniture so that the room didn't focus on the the big, empty spot where the TV used to be. Then I sat on the couch, and considered how much this experiment was going to suck.

What will I do without a TV? I'm a hardened addict. And Shaw Cable is my dealer.

Day 1 ended pitifully. I started up my computer and watched Enterprise in a 3" wide window. So very sad.

I lurk in the darkness.
I rise before dawn.
I hide from the daylight
and emerge after sunset.

I am a cubicle dweller. (Muah ha ha ha ha)

Cambie Street Bridge, pre-dawn. I think I need to clean the windshield.


Sunrise at Coal Harbour.

This is indeed puzzling. Which tastes least like coffee ? the stuff from McDonald's or the stuff from the coffee vending machine?

Try as I might, I just couldn't finish it.

Last night I watched the new director's cut of the Fellowship of the Ring. I loved the new scenes ? it restores some very important character and plot information ? but it's way too long now. I think Peter Jackson could easily have made LOTR into six movies.

My suggestion to someone renting the director's cut: watch it in two nights, pausing between books one and two (after Chapter XII, "Flight to the Ford"). I'll avoid spoiling it for anyone who hasn't read the book or seen the movie, but I will say that it's an obvious pause in the action after a serious chase scene and a river (the "flight to the ford"). Although the movie is split onto two discs in the four-disc set, I felt that the break came at a strange spot.

Anyway, I survived the marathon movie-watching session. Now I have to tackle the DVD "extras". And when am I going to find the time to watch it with the three different commentary audio tracks?? I'll have to watch it three more times before I return it on Monday.

Stephen will:

a) drive to the lovely city of Burnaby again,

b) attend day two of the workshop on minimalism in documentation, and

c) ponder the irony of extending a minimalist workshop to a second day.

Whoo hoo! Spidey has just swung into my DVD collection. I'm in for some web-slingin' fun.

Today, Stephen will:

a) drive to the lovely city of Burnaby,

b) attend a workshop class on minimalism in documentation,

c) spend the whole day away from a computer, and

d) suffer badly from caffeine and computer withdrawl symptoms.

'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I. 'No, sir,' quoth he,
'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune:'
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock:
Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags:
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.'

? Jaques in As You Like It

A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I were at the local pub, when this guy in urban camo fatigues walks in. All heads turn and watch as he sits down with a dozen or so nondescript types. Nothing particularly unusual, except that there's this red patch on his shoulder that looks vaguely familiar ? the symbol looks a bit like a black swastika on a red background.

So we're thinking, Hey. Has our neighbourhood pub been invaded by neo-nazi punks? We both take a closer look at the arm patch. We'd seen it before... but where? We don't know if he's just some loser, or if he's a neo-nazi punk deserving a good frowning from across the room (there were a dozen of them).

This morning it hit me. It's the symbol of the invading army of lizards in the 1980s TV series "V".

So does that mean that he's just an extreme sci-fi geek?

So what happens when thousands of people gather in Vancouver in a protest march against a possible war on Iraq? And what happens when the same thing happens simultaneously in cities all across the country? What happens when massive numbers of people speak out against war?

Nothing, apparently. The protests happened around midday yesterday, but I didn't hear a word about it in the TV news. The only coverage I found was a single, small article on the Vancouver Sun website.

Is this suppression or lack of interest?

Do you possess telekinesis? Can you bend this spoon using nothing but the power of your mind?

Concentrate on the spoon...

Live video from the top secret Psychic Challenge Lab
in my kitchen

For no particular reason...

It's one of those mornings where I can't put two words together. This is a problem when you're being paid to write... stuff. And things.

One of the pleasures of technical writing is the annual conference of the Society for Technical Communication. Most technical writers will attend every STC conference that their company will send them to. For the lucky ones, that means attending conferences in Orlando, Hawaii, Chicago, and other exotic places. I, on the other hand, can only attend when it's in town. This is the first year it's been in Vancouver.

Last Friday, I was just bubbling over with excitement as I passed through the convention centre's giant revolving doors. My head was full of visions of well-formed XML, controlled language, and single-sourced documents. At the registration desk, they gave me my ID badge and wallet (for holding the many business cards I'd collect), a tote bag, and a complimentary copy of Douglas Coupland's City of Glass, then pointed the way towards the free coffee and cookies.

Amazing! All this free stuff! And all I had to do was give them $300 of my company's money! I could have left the conference right then and felt like I had more than my money's worth!

The first seminar was about cultural issues in localization, in which I learned that one should avoid hand gestures in translated documents. After that, I attended a philosophical discussion on the nature of human existence and how to represent it using clip art in a PowerPoint presentation. To my great disappointment, I arrived too late to take part in the "Networking Lunch", which is a great way to collect as many business cards as you can in the shortest time possible. Picture speed dating, but with a lot of golf shirts and tote bags involved.

Finally, the afternoon rolled into view, and I sat in on a discussion on well-formed XML and how to validate it against a DTD. This was the most exciting talk of them all, because every now and then a crow would fly up to the window, squeeze through a hole, and hop around in the ceiling for a bit. Those were the shortest sixty minutes of the conference.

In retrospect, I'm sorry that I didn't pay the extra money to attend on Saturday as well. I left the convention centre without a single business card in my complimentary wallet, and I had to miss Saturday's talk about how to become a journal author.

On the other hand, I had some precious memories, a belly full of cookies, and a copy of City of Glass. Incidentally, I'd highly recommend City of Glass to any Vancouverite. If you read it with a pencil in hand, you can have fun underlining the frequent inaccuracies. The photos are very enjoyable too.

"Eat your fucking lettuce," the waiter said, thrusting my emptied breakfast plate back at me. This isn't normally what you'd expect from your waiter, but this isn't a normal café. This is the Elbow Room on Davie Street. Their motto: "Food and service is our name, abuse is our game."

If you're from Vancouver, you probably know all about the Elbow Room. It's the only place (that I know of) where the serving staff will freely berate the patrons. It's all very good-natured yet surreal at the same time.

I'm not big on the insults, but the food is absolutely amazing. I had the BC Benny ? two English muffins, cream cheese, smoked salmon, two poached eggs, and hollandaise, all on a bed of lettuce. Mmmmm, hollandaise. I'm drooling at the memory of it.

Anyway, I managed to avoid eating the lettuce on the grounds that it was too healthy and avoided the waiter's ire. Presently, the people at the next table got into a mock squabble over the tip, with expletives flying, at which point Sabine pitched in with "Oh, you're offending my virgin ears!"

Without pause, he shot back, "That's about the only part of you thats still a virgin!"

Well, Sabine may have lost that little exchange, but she can trade insults with the best of them. She gets along best with the smoking, tattooed, soccer-playing guys in Japan. She must be a real shock for the traditional types there.

The people next to us finished the dregs of their coffees, and waiter came back, bellowing "You're done. Get out."

After a few more expletives, they settled the bill and left, at which point I noticed that they had left a little note on their table, scribbled on a matchbook: "This is your FUCKING tip!!" (with little happy face.)

While ordering a McEvil McBreakfast at McDonald's this morning:

CASHIER: Hi. Can I take your order please?

CUBICLE DWELLER: Yes, I'd like a BLT bagel meal to go, please. With black coffee.

CASHIER: Is that the meal or just the bagel?

CUBICLE DWELLER: The meal. With black coffee.

CASHIER: Would you like to Super Size that?

CUBICLE DWELLER: No.

CASHIER: With cream or sugar?

CUBICLE DWELLER: No. Black, please.

CASHIER: And will that be for here or to go?

Lately I've been haunted by nightmares of a teddy bear with a PC in its belly. It just sits there with a little furry smirk on its face, and its belly growls with the sound of a disk drive and fan. Have I gone loopy? No, I just stumbled across PENFOLD's Case Mods.



Modified computer cases (or "mods") are quite the rage these days, probably due to Apple's stylish new design for the iMac. Modding a PC, I suppose is a clear case (heh) of Mac envy, but it's so tempting to tear apart that ugly off-white box and turn it into something better ? something that at least looks like it belongs in a home rather than a science lab.

So that gots me a-thinkin'... what could I do to my trusty ol' Dell? True, I don't have any oversized teddy bears on hand, and neither do I have any metalworking skills, but surely there's some easy way to disguise a PC case. Maybe I'll build one out of LEGO.

Anyway, here are more sites on PC mods:

FrozenCPU.com

MODTHEBOX!

EnVaDoR.CoM

Casejunkies.com

It's finally here... the book with a title that's almost longer than the book itself: "10 Cool LEGO Mindstorms Ultimate Builders Projects: Amazing Projects You Can Build in Under an Hour".



And if you squint really hard, you can almost make out my name on the cover.

The book features ten interesting projects from genuine Mindstorms fanatics, including robots by Dr. C.S. Soh, whose skill at designing pneumatic LEGO machines is mind-boggling.

Writing for the book was enjoyable but exhausting ? many pots of coffee were sacrificed in the making of those robots. For my contribution, I focused on the novice builder and designed four robots: three vehicles and a hopping, leggy thing (two of them are on the front cover).

My hope is that several thousand people will buy this book and build the robots, at which point, the legions of hopping, leggy things will rise up and CONQUER THE WORLD!!

Or maybe they'll just hop around a bit. Either way would be cool.

Today's sampling for Project Snack 2 is crustacean crackers. Mmmm. All yummy and... crustaceany.

Although the US Navy suffered a small setback in the deployment of their high-frequency sonar program, in the end a court ruling could never hold back useful military technology. What do the courts know about what's best for Americans?

In a Wired article, it says that "Hours after it was deployed, at least 16 whales and two dolphins beached themselves on islands in the Bahamas. Eight whales died and scientists found hemorrhaging around their brains and ear bones, injuries consistent with exposure to loud noise."

I, for one, strongly support the US Navy's need for an improved sonar capability, and if it happens to kill every marine mammal in the area, it's a much-needed improvement. I say it's never too soon to hemmorage the brains of every damn whale in the ocean.

After all, whales are a hazard to navigation, and they're known to attack boats for the mere sport of it. Shouldn't we employ the high-frequency sonar on all ships as a safety measure? After only a few weeks of use, all major shipping channels would be clear of whales, and as a bonus, coastal communities could feast for several months on the resulting carcasses. Regular use of the sonar could easily (and permanently) clear the world's oceans of the dangerous beasts.

No bleeding-heart, anti-American whale-lovers should stand between the US Navy and national security. If only we could clear out the environmentalists with as much ease.

Three cheers for the US Navy!

I was thrilled to see the news today in the company memo. Our building now has a rooftop patio. I can't wait to get up there and enjoy the view of... well pretty much the same view that I have from my cubicle, only three floors higher. I know where I'll be at lunch time. (The patio, for those who weren't following along.)

It's a shame they didn't finish it earlier in the year. On the other hand, if this cold weather keeps up, we won't need to refrigerate our beverages.