Another fun ad from the folks at DQ

The Dairy Queen Blizzard ad writers are at it again. These people deserve a raise. This is supremely funny stuff. I especially love the dad's reaction when mom comes through the door....

Episode 18 is up

In this instalment of the Great White North II, the hosers discuss the myriad uses for duct tape.

Video.ca link.

New motivation poster

By Karl Plesz

100 things in 100 days - number 57

57. I've been surfing the web since 1994.

When we moved to Calgary, one of the first things I did was get an internet connection. I remember it like it was yesterday. Darlene wasn't convinced that the internet was a big deal, but I had a feeling it was something we really needed to get. We got a dial-up connection through a local provider. By 1999, we had switched to a high speed connection using DSL, again with a local provider (Nucleus - whose customer service rocks, by the way). We haven't looked back.

I love discussing with folks how our lives have changed since using the internet.

Stealthy....

We were stopped at a traffic light yesterday and Darlene said, "Look at that cute car". I'm looking around, and not seeing any car in my line of vision that I would deem 'cute', I said, "Where?". Darlene says, "That Smart car!" I'm looking around some more and finally crane my neck to one side and suddenly I see it. It turns out the entire car was blocked by the pillar between the windshield and the driver side window. That made the both of us laugh.

The Smart car - hidden from view behind a window pillar........... it's the stealth car!

Not a fruit you say.......................

This can't really be true, can it? Oklahoma has been officially declared the watermelon a vegetable. Not happy to stop there, Oklahoma's house of representatives voted to award the watermelon the honour of official state vegetable, by a vote of 78 votes to 19.

Some days this blog just writes itself.

One thing leads to another

So you all know about my foray into acting training. Well, you may also know that it's this diversion that led to Bernie and I starting this whole Great White North II thing. Now, I've been given a new venue - Law Day. Tomorrow is Law Day in Calgary, where the justice system puts on a day of educational presentations at the Court of Queen's Bench downtown. For the kids, there's a mock trial presentation, 'Pirates of the Courtroom – The Case of the Pirate Princess'. It's a sexual discrimination case and since one of my classmates from acting classes was involved in producing, writing and starring in the play, I was lucky enough to be asked to participate.

My role? I play the Pirate Princess's mother. Yes, that's right, I'll be in drag for my next part. If you're up early tomorrow, you might catch me in the background during an interview with Alison (the producer / writer / Pirate Princess) on Global TV. If you're downtown at noon or 2pm, I'll be at the courthouse.

In case you can't make it, there's me in my getup.

[update] See that wig? Didn't wear it. Alison had a blond one instead and it was perfect, along with a few other accoutrement. Anyway, the play was a blast, the kids were great and I told the cast I want to be involved next year. Met some great people and got to hang out in the judge's chambers with the cast, which included Ian White (a local CTV news personality). I even made it onto the Saturday morning news on Global, although I did not record the show, since I had no idea when it would air (it was live). So if you were watching Global in Calgary this morning at 9:15am, you would've seen me on TV.

Alison and I are both hoping we were discovered today....

Ouch

I so need to get me one of these for entertaining - a Voodoo toothpick holder..............

100 things in 100 days - number 58

58. Comedy is an important part of my life.


Steve Martin. Bill Murray. Robin Williams. John Cleese. Rowan Atkinson. Jerry Seinfeld. David Letterman. Geniuses - every last one of them. I could only aspire to be as funny as they are.

I think laughter is indeed a potent medicine.

Ever seen a toddler say "I need to get my drink on"?

Here's a clip of Will Ferrell playing a tenant who hasn't paid the rent, who gets a visit from the landlord, Pearl.

Caution, if you're upset by the sight of a toddler using strong language, don't watch it.

Heheheh................. are they still here? Nah, I didn't think so.........

100 things in 100 days - number 59

59. I served 20 years in the military.

How I joined - that's a funny story. A buddy and I were going to join together and on the day I went to swear in, he never showed up. Luckily, I never looked back.

It was a good career - I was essentially a telecommunications and IT technologist. I stumbled into instructing, which made up over a third of my career. I still instruct to this day. The last 5 years in the military were a bit of a drag, but that's only because I had outgrown the culture. But there are no regrets. That career gave me confidence, taught me some skills and in the end, brought me to Calgary.

Lego creations

10 cool Lego creations.

Pictured is the Lego car controlled by a Bluetooth mouse.

W quotes

The 10 best George W Bush quotes.

More online computer fun

If you're bored and need a little distraction, give Onslaught a try. Attackers try to get to your base. Your job is to build and upgrade defences to shoot them into oblivion before they get there.

Can you say addictive?

100 things in 100 days - number 60

60. I've owned 4 cars and 3 motorcycles over my life so far. I drive an Acura TSX at the moment.

1980 - Honda 185cc Twinstar. Small, but eco-freakin-nomical! That was the best investment I ever made. Bought it for $1100 and traded it in the next summer for $1000 toward a.....

1981 - Honda 400cc CM400T. Kept it for a couple years, then bought my first car, a used....

1983 - Chevrolet Chevelle. Your first car is always special. This one served me well, until a buddy set it on fire trying to start it with too much ether. That would be the last used vehicle I would buy for 24 years.

1984 - A brand new Honda V45 Magna (750cc). Hard to believe I paid a mere $4000 for a brand new bike. Shaft drive. They say once you get shaft, you never go back to chain. I kept that bike for 4 years and put over 80,000km on it. Remember what I said about my love of driving? I suppose this is about where it started. Sold the beauty in late 1989 in anticipation of my first new car......

1990 - Honda Civic Si. What a cool car that was. Unfortunately, it was cursed. Broken into in some amateur thug's attempt to steal it. Bizzaro accident on a road trip to Washington DC. In fact, it was after this road trip that I concluded it wasn't a car well suited to long road trips. So we traded it in for a.......

1992 - Honda Accord DX. Not exactly the most exciting car in the world, but very practical. And roomy for a small car. Not bad on gas either. Kept the Accord for 12 years and put over 365,000km on it. By 2004, it was starting to cost me just a tad more in maintenance costs than I was willing to accept, so I bought a........

2004 - Acura TSX. It's really an Accord in disguise. With 200hp. Sport shift. I totally love this car.

[late entry] 2007 - Honda Jazz scooter (2003 vintage).

Not quite.....

I love this. Fast food ads versus reality. You know - how the picture in the ad looks nothing like the food you actually get? I was just talking about this with Darlene a few days ago.

Here's a Whopper ad beside what you actually get.

Nothing up my sleeve................ PRESTO!

You can always depend on Worth 1000 for a good chuckle and this contest is no different. This time, folks were challenged to remix horror movies into something safe for kids.

Director's Mother's Cut 2.

Busy busy

Apologies for the lack of posts. I'm teaching 2 nights this week.

I'll try to make up for it on the nights I'm home.

100 things in 100 days - number 61

61. I actually owned a Commodore Vic 20. [shudder]

If that doesn't date me, I don't know what will. It had a tape drive to store data. Some games came on special cartridges. It had no monitor - you had to hook it up to a TV set. That sucker had a 1MHz CPU. It had 5KB of RAM. That's not a typo. Mind you, only 3.5KB was available to the user. Not to worry, that could be expanded to 64KB. The scary thing is - that was only 26 years ago.

Funny

What if the Beatles were Irish?

Forget hydrogen fuel cells....... we had the solution right under our noses

Another great film I watched this past weekend was Who Killed the Electric Car. It's a documentary chronicling the rise and fall of pure electric cars in the US. These vehicles only came into existence thanks to progressive legislation in California that aimed to cut smog by forcing car manufacturers to build zero emissions cars. It worked, for a time, but these companies were secretly planning to sue the government into submission and take these profit killing electric cars off the road for good, all the while blaming lack of demand for their demise.

It's a decent observation of how big business has unchallenged power in our economy. The best part of the documentary was how they showed just how flawed the hydrogen economy will be (emphasis on the fact that it's not ready) compared to what we already had with electric cars. Which by the way, would not only deliver power to vehicle most efficiently, but also be usable by the electric utility as a means of storing some electric power off of the grid until it's needed.

100 things in 100 days - number 62

62. I am a Liberal.

There's really not much to add to that. Except to say that when I was growing up, I was a minority in my own province (Anglophone in Quebec). Now I'm a minority in Alberta (Liberal). That wasn't meant to provoke a discussion - I'm just stating fact.

Not that this has anything to do with the current topic, but it might interest you all to know that I predicted the return of Jean Chretien to politics after he had retired and wrote that book Straight from the Heart. People thought I was nuts. I then predicted he would win the Liberal leadership and become the next Prime Minister. Nuts again. For my next trick, I predict that Justin Trudeau will run for leader of the Liberals (and win), but not as soon as people think.

Imus smears a ho

Unless you don't follow the daily news, you've probably heard about the Don Imus story. I have nothing of value to add to the discussion, but here's one blogger's take on the whole story.

Do ya like that clever blog post title? It's a twist on 'Horton hears a Who'.....

Stop the madness

If you don't want Canada to have a similarly bone-headed law as the DMCA in the US, you might want to let your federal politicians know. If you don't know what's at stake, you can read more about it here.

Once you've read enough and agree that you'd like to inform your representative that you oppose this, there's a site that makes writing an email to the right people super easy. This link helps you quickly find your MP, presents you with a standard objection letter, which you can edit accordingly. Sweet!

100 things in 100 days - number 63

63. I have a great interest in city planning.

In hindsight, maybe I should have gone into civic life. Either as a politician or a city planner. I have an unnaturally strong interest in city planning. Ask me what Calgary has done right and wrong with its development and growth and I'll have your ear for several hours. That computer game Sim City? More addictive than crack cocaine.

So what are my platform promises? Well, if you vote for me, I'll get that ring road finished sooner rather than later. It's time to consider raising some or all of the C-Train line downtown up above the +15 elevated walkway level so we can ease traffic and increase the safety of the system. In fact, we need to make transit more desirable to commuters, but right now taking transit is akin to herding cattle. Bus riders often wait for several buses to go by before being able to board one. C-Train rides aren't much better. One councillor suggested removing seats. This individual obviously wouldn't be caught dead riding a C-Train to work, would they?

It should always be easier and cheaper (preferably free) to park a motorcycle, moped, hybrid or miniature car (like Smart cars) at a pay parking site - even private sites like hospitals. Some measure of a perk should also be extended to cars arriving in the downtown core full of passengers.

We need to address sprawl. There's no wonder our city has trouble maintaining its infrastructure with the ultra low density we have. We need incentives for property owners to ease the shortage of rental properties. The conversion of rentals to condos has to be limited.

Guest bedroom makeover

For those of you craving more before / after pictures, here's the guest bedroom.

Someday that green carpet will be gone too.

Babel.................. I liked it

So I finally got around to watching the movie Babel. If you ever saw Crash, it was similar in premise, except with a slightly more International flavour. I know a few people who didn't really know what to make of this movie. It was a nice exploration of how people touch other lives in the most unexpected ways. It didn't have a Hollywood ending, but that's part of why I liked it. I also liked seeing Japan featured in yet another movie.

Darlene didn't get why they bothered casting Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett for such relatively small parts, but it seemed OK to me.

Karl's Personal Pie Charts 3

Chart #3.

% of life sporting a moustache.

(I haven't had one since 1995)

100 things in 100 days - number 64

64. I don't celebrate birthdays anymore.

There's not really much to say about this, but I don't celebrate them. I guess I don't see the necessity in celebrating birthdays.............. errrrr........ unless you count cupcakes. I'll gladly bend the rules for a good ol' cupcake...... or two. Or birthday se......... ummmm never mind.

My friends and co-workers have no idea when my birthday is and I like to keep it that way. Darlene and I have a truce - I don't get restaurant staff to embarrass her on her b-day and vice versa.

I know - I'm weird.....

Picture by chotda

Episode 17 of GWN II is up!

In this episode, Hoser wants to discuss hangover cures, but Hosehead just wants to go to bed, suffering from one hims own self. Video.ca link (8100+ views on Video.ca so far).

Did I ever mention that these videos are unscripted?