hamie’s diner
Note to self: check this out.
the road to god knows…
the parkdale gallery is currently running a show entitled "Comic Book Chaos", where a number of local artists are displaying their work. as you can probably guess from the title, the focus of the exhibition is on comic book art.
I picked up a print of the piece used in the cover art of the road to god knows…, a graphic novel by local artist von allan (whose flickr stream is here). It’s a great print, and I’ve never realized just how many shades of grey there were 🙂 you can follow von’s novel at girlamatic.com.
if you’re in ottawa and happen to find yourself in the area of the parkdale market (the gallery is right next to the carleton tavern), stop in and have a look. there’s some good stuff there, and I hadn’t realized how deep the local comic scene appears to be.
dj riko’s merry mixmas 2007
DJ Riko produces a Christmas Mix every year, and it’s a tradition of his that he shares. I’m happy he does, because his mixes are a nice twist on what’s played in store and on the radio. If you’re looking for an alternative to traditional music (which, as a bonus, includes a backbeat), try some of his Merry Mixmases. I think my fave is still 2005’s, but there’s good stuff there, along with some stand-alones of people’s favourite bits (like the 12 Days of Mixmas).
Submitted for your entertainment. 🙂
support.mozilla.com (sumo) is now live
just a quick note for all you firefox users: sumo, our firefox support forums, went live today. the forums are the start of a knowledgebase designed to help firefox users of all levels of expertise, and should be your first stop when you have a question about firefox that you can’t readily find an answer to. if you’re interested in contributing, some help is still needed with a number of articles that the support team would like addressed.
in any event, do have a peek, and consider helping out.
so, guess where I was this past weekend
ok, that was fun. in spite of the delays getting to chicago. and missing our flight to pittsburgh (which they canceled anyways). and not being able to meet up with kourtney. and enduring a 3.5hr delay in pittsburgh. and a canceled flight in Chicago. which led to an overnight at an airport hotel. and coming home to two feet of snow in my driveway. and an eight-foot-wide-and-three-feet-high swath of plow leavings to shovel.
I thought it was a good time, which means it was a great time.
coop and I headed to Pittsburgh to see the Steelers play the Jaguars on Sunday. we stayed at the Rennaisance Pittsburgh, which is a very nice hotel, in a huge room over-looking the river and stadiums. it was also quite entertaining to see folks in Steelers jerseys with open beer (well, Miller Lite) running all over said nice hotel.
we arrived Saturday evening, just in time to be hungry. we walked in the sleet across one of the bridges to the Buckhead Saloon at Station Square, where we grabbed dinner and five pints each for under $40, total. we met some folks who thought I was younger than coop (figure that one out, musta been the ballcap), and then we did the responsible thing and went back to the hotel to sleep.
game day involved sleeping in, breakfast at a good greasy spoon, ESPN game day, and a walk across the bridge to Heinz Field. it’s a beautiful stadium, and I look forward to visiting it again some time when the temperature is around 20 degrees (Celsius) or higher. it’s big, shiny, yellow, and has great sight lines. it also catches the wind from the rivers it sits on, and let me tell ya, they blow.
it was raining when we arrived, but by the time the color guard arrived for the Star Spangled Banner, that all changed. it was a little chilly, but not horrifically so… just enough to make me realize that any NFL game I have seen so far has been in cold places (except minnefuckingapolis, which is cold, but has a dome).
the game itself was ok, and I still don’t understand why Pittsburgh insisted on passing all the time. the Jags bowled them over with a solid running game. while the Steelers made in interesting, they ended up losing it to the Jags running game.
from there it was off to the airport for a 25 hour (with layover) trip home, and it’s good to be back with no visits to airports planned until jan. coop is an excellent person to go to games with and drink beer, and I’m really glad we finally got to see the Steelers play after talking about it for about 5 years.
it really was a good time, and I look forward to seeing the Seahawks play in Seattle next October.
ohhowihateohiostate
That was the bumper sticker on my car for my formative years (high school and uni).
The sentiment stays.
Go Illini!!!
Update: Awe-some. Illini 28 Buckeyes 21
removing the norton internet security 2008 toolbar from firefox
I run Winbloze. I know, I know, but I have had a much better experience with Windows environments on my desktop than I have had with my Ti or my MBP. Windows comes with risks, so to help mitigate (again, I know, I know) those risks I use Norton Internet Security.
My subscription ran out a couple days ago, so I upgraded to NIS 2008. NIS 2008 includes anti-phishing protection, which I already have. NIS wants me to use its anti-phishing, so helpfully installs a toolbar in Firefox. It doesn’t tell me it’s going to do this, nor does it give me a choice, and there’s no way I can see to remove it from within NIS, only disable fishing protection. This pisses me off, so…
DO NOT WANT.
If this kind of behaviour pisses you off as well, and you want to stick with the built-in protection Firefox offers, you can remove the toolbar. Fire up your trusty file mangler, and head on over to the Firefox installation directory (usually C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox). Under that directory is a subdirectory called “components”. In the “components” directory is a file called “coFFPlgn.dll”; move it somewhere safe and restart Firefox.
Toolbar gone!
Thanks Symantec, next time try providing it as an uninstallable plugin or, even better, an extension. Fucktards.
Update: Toolbar back! Every time you reboot, it “helpfully” restores the file. I have asked Symantec how I turn it off permanently. I think I know the answer already.
Update 2: Johan has a good workaround, as follows: After playing about for a bit I tried an old trick, close all instances of firefox, go to the components folder as mentioned above, and remove the coFFPlgn.dll file. Create a new empty file, name it the very same, coFFPlgn.dll and set it to be read only.
the null file is ignored by ffox, and marking it read-only will prevent Norton from over-writing it. works nicely for me. recommended. thanks, Johan!
irc can be very entertaining
there was bad eighties music happening in the Toronto office. being in Ottawa, it was hard to share the moment until it was so nicely captured by johnath:
<beltzner> and now, "Snow"!
<madhava> oh jesus
<johnath> o/~ In-for-muh. ajfhadklhfgadlsfjlajf.afj.ajfjaerlkfjaef o/~
lessig on user generated content
Larry Lessig’s talk on user generated content, who’s generating it, how copyright law reacts to it and, most importantly, the effect this has on the content creators is awesome. Take the twenty minutes, and watch the whole thing. His summary at the end addresses an unintended consequence that I had never even considered, and it makes a frightening amount of sense. Really, really worth the watch.
Larry Lessig: Why kids need better copyright laws, from the awesome TEDTalks podcast.
child’s play charity
Just a reminder that the Child’s Play charity is looking for your help to provide children’s hospitals with games, books, and media to help make stays a little easier to take for the kids. This year hospitals in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax are taking part in Canada, along with several locations in the US and abroad. Hospitals create wishlists with Amazon, and you can pick and choose which hospital what you want to donate to, as well as what you want to donate.
It’s a great program, and while there are plenty of other charities out there, I love the idea of spreading a little gamer love over the holidays. Just something to consider.