I'm breaking my blog-silence to point out this appalling news: the premier of British Columbia, Gordon Campbell, has agreed to allowing forest companies to log BC Parks. The excuse, for now, is that it will stop the spread of pine beetles.

However, Barry Dobbin, the forests ministry's assistant bark-beetle coordinator, admits that logging won't help fight beetle infestations, and Joe Foy of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee feels that the premier actually wants large-scale logging operations in the parks.

This is about a year after the same government announced the "working forest" strategy, in which all forests in BC (except parks) would be "open for business". Now, apparently, the parks -- which include some of the last examples of untouched rainforest -- are on the chopping block too. Or, more accurately, they'll become chopping blocks and many other fine commercial products.

Here are the links. First, the pro-business perspective from Canada.com:
B.C. parks, forests ministry will combat bark beetles

And the independent media perspective:
Premier?s Agenda to Log BC Parks Shocks Environmental Community

Thanks, everyone who visited and left comments.

It was fun, but I'm going to put a stop this "writing" nonsense (except, of course, technical writing, which is nonsense that pays my bills).

Yes, I know that I've said this before, and then posted several blog entries the very next day. This time, I'm serious. I'm all blogged out.

Cheers!
-Steve (AKA, "cubey")

I said I'd stop playing Second Life. I was wrong. I couldn't stay away. Now I'm playing it nightly.

Last night I built a 3-D model of a biplane and won 100 bucks for it in a contest. That's a hundred "Linden dollars"--play money. Oh, but it will help me build bigger and better things. Things that I can sell for more Linden dollars.

To keep things in perspective, I'm not as addicted as my neighbour, Lola. She's a pixie who owns a patch of land on the same hill as me in the Second Life sim. On the weekend, she spent twelve hours straight working on a tank. That's dedication.

So if you're wondering where I am, I'm probably building airplanes in the sim. Huh? What time is it? I forgot to sleep again.

Well, since I picked up my large 5 megapixel digicam, I've tried to justify keeping the compact 4 megapixel one. It's just so convenient to have around--it's small enough to fit in my pocket, and takes "real purty" pictures. But I should really let it go now, so I'm just wondering if anyone out there in blogland is looking for a digicam.


Konica Digital Revio KD-400Z

It's a 4 megapixel camera that accepts both Sony Memorystick and SD memory cards. It has 3x zoom and can take decent close-ups and low-light photos. You can use the photos for crisp (but not crispy) prints up to 8x10 in size. It records full-motion video clips with sound.

I've been really happy with the quality of the images. If you'd like to see samples of photos that I've taken with it, have a look at my photo pages and look for the ones taken with the KD-400Z.

Make me an offer! Don't delay! Call today! Crazy Cubey will cut you a deal!! AAAAAAAA!!!! I drank too much coffee!!!!!!!

cubey@cubicledweller.ca

As I surfed the web last night, I head a tremendous crack and a thunk. No, it wasn't my brain finally coming loose and hitting the floor. Across the road, the top of a tree blew down in the gusting wind. It landed in the yard next to it, missing the dog.

This is just another step in the decay of the abandoned house across the street. Almost a year ago, an arsonist set fire to the back of the house, which gutted it and badly singed the tree. Since then, the house has sat empty with wide-open broken windows. I'm astonished that nobody has torn it down or begun renovations. I'm also astonished that it hasn't turned into a crack house.

Once upon a time, this was a lively, thriving residential neighbourhood.

It's here. The friendly neighbourhood postie just dropped off the much-anticipated hardcover copy of Adrian's novel. In the words of the immortal Homer, "whoo hoo!". And now, I read.

If you keep a bag of chips in your desk's file drawer, do you file it under "C" for "chips" or "M" for "Miss Vickie's"? Or maybe it should go under "Y" for "yum".

A long-time link in my blogroll, Escribitionist.com, is closing down. "Jane" wrote a particularly interesting and personal blog that will be missed by many.

Thanks for the witty and entertaining bloggings, Jane, and good luck with your future projects.

Link: Escribitionist.com: "Stay Gold, Ponyboy..."

Someone recently found this site by searching for "cubicle survival kit ideas". That strikes me as a good idea for a topic, so here are some items that I'd like to see in a cubicle survival kit:

• Chocolate and salty snacks.
  
  
• Strange Japanese snacks.
  
  
• A coffee mug without the corporate logo or cute little cartoons.
  
  
• A coffee dispenser.
  
  
• Penguin-shaped juggling balls.
  
  
• A comfey cardigan sweater and a pair of sneakers. Hey, Mister Rogers was onto something there.
  
  
• A chair that ISN'T so uncomfortable that it crushes your tailbone and puts your back into spasms.
  
  
• An endless supply of frozen mini-pizzas, pasta dishes, and instant noodles.
  
  
• Rare and inpiring works of art to decorate the cubicle. No new-age photos with corporate-speak messages under them like "Teamwork" or "Imagination" or "Leadership". I'd rather look at paintings of yak vomit.
  
  
• Cold beer. For Fridays after 5:30PM only, of course. And lunctimes.
  
  
• A Lay-Z-Boy rocker-recliner in green vinyl. A drink-holder is a must.
  
  
• An X-Box and widescreen TV.
  
  
• A masseuse.
  
  
• A small teleportation device for slipping out to the movie theatre without being noticed.
  
  
• An excessively polite, gold-tone robot who will do your work when you use the teleportation device. Must be fluent in the language of load-lifters and 'vaporators. * 

I expect HR to pay attention to the suggestions.

* I apologize for that gratuitous allusion to Star Wars. It won't happen again.

Last night I discovered the seedy underside of the simulated world of Second Life. There I was, minding my own business, when a stranger walked up and handed me the directions to a club. Alright, I thought. Why not check it out?

As it turns out, it's a strip club. That's right, someone built a strip club in the Second Life world, in a region known as "DaBoom" (sigh). You can walk into this simulated club and watch simulated women take off simulated clothes. The whole concept is bizarre. Certainly, in SL your character, or "avatar", can be dressed any way you want, and you can even remove the clothes entirely. Underneath the clothing, however, the avatar is about as anatomically correct as Barbie and Ken dolls. Because the club was empty when I showed up, I spoke to someone who worked there. She told me that people payed SL cash to see them dance. I honestly didn't know what to say to that. The idea of paying money to watch a manniquin-like figure prance around baffles me.

That's not all. On a different occasion, someone handed me a drink. It wasn't literally a liquid, of course, because it's a simulation. However, the object, which looked like a cocktail glass, contained a script that made my avatar wobble and fall down a lot. Drunk, basically. Are there drug-scripts too?

So. Yes, the simulated world has a sex and alcohol problem. I shouldn't be surprised--after all, SL is an open-ended simulator in which the users create all the content. People inevitably bring their vices with them from the real world.

This will be my last entry about Second Life, I swear... mainly because my free trial account is expiring soon, and I don't think I want to pay money for this. It's all too weird.

As I mentioned last Friday, I'm totally addicted to the virtual-reality game, Second Life, to the point where I'm neglecting my first life. I know it's pointless, but it's utterly engrossing, despite the fact that the Second Life software crashes frequently on my computer.

One SL "resident" commented that the whole thing is completely futile, and that it's just a glorified chat program. Well, in one respect, yes, SL is an extremely social game. It's more than that, however. By providing a simulated world and simulated bodies, it allows people around the world to interact in ways that mimic the physical world. For example, on the weekend, I attended a lecture. The instructor stood at a podium in front of the class, and talked about creating images in Photoshop. She showed us examples in a slideshow on a simulated screen behind her. The instructor could see us--our avatars, actually--and we could see her. A computer file can be exchanged simply by reaching out and handing it to someone--or leaving a copy in a convenient spot, like on a table or something.

I also cooperated with other people as we designed buildings and other objects. We walked with our avatars around the objects and moved 3-D primitives (basic polygons) into place like a colossal building toy. When it's done, the residents with scripting skills can make the objects come to life. I took a ride on an airplane that someone else built. Then I played laser tag in an arena that someone built and scripted. I lost badly.

This kind of interaction is nothing new. It happens in the real world every day. People meet, chat, exchange money, build things, interact socially, and do everything that makes human society go. But until computers came along, these activities were limited by physical location. Simulations like this one escape the contraints of the real.

There's also an element of the surreal in SL. Anything can be built, and the SL residents obviously have an immense amount of imagination and creativity. On one occasion, I found myself standing on the shoulder of a 20-meter-tall glowing monkey. I've got a photo to prove it too. Shortly afterwards, the monkey's creator gave me a copy of the monkey, which I shrunk to teddy-bear size and placed on my shoulder. Inside SL, residents can build anything they can imagine.

Another time, I explored the interior of a gothic cathedral... as the Hulk. No kidding, I was big and green and I had purple pants too.

I'll probably get tired of it after another week or so when the novelty wears off and when Second Life crashes one too many times in an evening. Until then, you can find me hanging out near the stage in Dore.

Now, the thing about spending time away from the office is that you have to pay for it. I arrived this morning to fifteen trillion e-mails. I proceeded to wade into them. No, that's not true. Before wading into them, I first paid a visit to my old friend the coffee vending machine. I actually had to make my own coffee while I was away, believe it or not.

Reading my e-mails evokes all kinds of emotions. It's like watching the events of last week unfold in fast-forward: five days of successes, failures, communications, and miscommunications all compressed into a couple of hours. It's nerve-wracking to see e-mails flying back and forth discussing how to do things without me. At first, it's flattering to think that things don't work right without me. Then it occurs to me that things moved along just fine. Everyone is perfectly capable of coping with the extra workload for a week.

Shhh. Don't tell HR. "Indispensible". Tell them I'm "indispensible".

Life can be complicated. It's more so if you start a second one. The other day, I began my free trial of Second Life.

Is it a game? Is it a chat room? Is it a 3-D design tool? Maybe all of the above--maybe none. The first thing you learn when you're dropped into the Second Life virtual world is that you navigate the world using an avatar: a character that you create to interact with the world and its inhabitants. Your avatar isn't you--it's merely your eyes, ears, and hands in the SL world.

After spending an hour or so exploring, I met several other SL users and chatted with them. Some were scripters making games within Second Life, like sumo, for example. Others were builders, creating elaborate architectural masterpieces or vehicles. At one point, I borrowed someone's dune buggy and tore across the landscape.

Later, several people gathered in a small amphitheatre for "show and tell". People took turns on the stage conjuring their latest and most interesting objects. One person produced a 30-foot tall skeleton. Another showed his airplane and even did a couple of loops and rolls.

I'm not sure what to think of this... thing, but I'm hooked. It's a shame that it crashes every ten minutes though.

It was a truly magical moment when by baby emerged into the world. I get all (sniff)... I get all choked up when I think about it.

Here she is...



And her first words--oh it's so sweet--her first words were a friendly suggestion to register my copy of Windows. Isn't that adorable?

A is for atrophy rotting my brain
B is for beer and rampant weight gain
C is for cubicle, that's where I won't be
D is for delicious fresh fish from the sea
E is for everthing I like to do
F is for f--- this, I'm on vacation and I don't have to sit in front of a computer.

I always get thrown off when people greet me in that "American" way of thrusting their hand at me, grasping mine, and waggling it up and down, or if I know them well, a brief hug.

It isn't not that I'm never not a not-unaffectionate guy. I like to belch loudly before stripping naked and pelting them with chunks of moose meat and bottles of beer. Yes, even my guy friends (if they don't drink the beer first, which usually they do).

But this is Canada. And when it comes to that uptight hand-shaking thing, it's my feeling that back-bacon-eating, beer-swilling hosers fought the Americans in 1812 so we didn't have to greet people in that I'm-a-good-ol'-boy-but-don't-throw-meat-at-me manner.

Basically, someone lunging at me with their hand is bound to elicit a singular, visceral response. Especially if the individual is female. And if said individual gets upset because they didn't expect to end up with a handful of moose meat, I'll simply say, "Look, eh, I respect your traditions for welcoming friends and acquaintances, and I expect you to--whoo hoo! Beer!"

Link: Geese Aplenty: "Lip service"

I'd just like to state, for the record, how fun it is to watch someone eat spicy, marinaded tuna sashimi for the first time.

Once again, it's time to pitch the dreaded "bad blurb". I hope others will follow me in this grand entirely pointless tradition. Famous movie producers should note that the rights to my bad blurbs sell for ONE MILLION DOLLARS! (each)

Corky Corkster McCorcoran was accidentally born as a slug, although in all other respects, he seems completely human. School is difficult for Corky--his classmates tease him and, in sports, players often mistake him for the ball in rugby matches.

One day, Corky is stepped on by the famous television chef, Emeril Laflasse, who agrees to nurse Corky back to health and train him to say "BAM!". Soon Laflasse and Corky become fast friends and Corky becomes a master chef, with an impressive range of dishes.

Then, during the taping of Corky's first television appearance, a flying saucer lands on the studio's roof: it's Corky's real parents, who are accompanied by several warriors from Slimeron Four of the Slimerian Star Empire. As the Slimerians ooze through the studio's hallways, sliming everyone, Corky whips up a batch of his famous salt-crust salmon and offers it to the warriors to stop their muderous rampage. After the warriors eat the salmon and shrivel into raisin-like lumps, he explains to his Slimerian parents that he's really happier here on Earth and would they please stop killing everyone. His parents agree to depart, but leave directions back to Slimeron Four, should Corky change his mind.

Everyone (still alive) in the studio celebrates! Corky has saved Earth from invasion, and has created a delicious salmon-and-raisin dish in the process! BAM!