22
Nov

National Car Rental Sucks at Reservations

By Puck 0 Comments
Categories: General

I reserved a 16′ Cube Van for today on Thursday.  Here’s pretty much what happened when I arrived to pick it up:

The guy at the counter said there was “nothing he could do”, and when I asked when the earliest they’d have a truck available was, he said “Thursday or Friday”.

I phoned up their customer service when I got home and they apologized and did say “We do have a confirmation of that reservation,” to which I responded “Yes, but you had no truck.”  He apologized again and said the place to talk to about that was the “counter” which meant the place I was just at who said “there’s nothing I can do.”  I demanded someone higher up that than, and he provided me with a manager’s number, which I phoned and got no answer at.

Screw you, National Car Rental.

Thankfully, Budget has an available truck which we’re going to get now.

03
Nov

For Sale: PS2 Slim + Guitar Hero I & II

By Puck 2 Comments
Categories: Personal and Play

We’re in the process of clearing out our stuff for the new move and it’s time to get rid of our Playstation 2 (Slim version).  I originally bought it to play Guitar Hero and it’s served me well though it hasn’t really got much use since the series moved to the 360.

Included is a PS2 Slim, Okami, Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II, two Guitar controllers, one PS2 Dualshock controller, and an 8MB memory card, plus the standard power and RCA video cables.  All are in great condition though I can’t find the case for Guitar Hero II.

Before I put this on Craigslist I figured I’d offer this to my friends first.  How does $100 sound?

23
Oct

Ron Howard on the US Election

By Puck 0 Comments
Categories: General

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die
20
Oct

I hate moving

By Puck 1 Comment
Categories: Personal

Our landlord dropped by yesterday and told us that because of the economic crisis (and his father’s reaction of dumping all his stocks) that he has to put our house up for sale to get some instant cash.  However, as he pointed out, the market for housing is terrible for sellers right now, and it could take months before the place sells.  He thinks the soonest he can sell it is February — there are three or four similar houses in our neighbourhood that have been listed for months already.

To cushion the blow, he’s lower our rent for a bit as long as we’ll be here, but it still totally sucks.  We love the area we’re living in, and while this house has faults none of them are major.  Loki has a big back yard to play in, we’re in walking distance to Metrotown, many great restaurants, and Skytrain.  On top of that, despite being by two major roads, we’re off them enough so that the area is quiet, and gets little through-traffic.

But now we have to look for a new place.  We’ve got too much stuff to go for an apartment, and house-hunting is difficult.  Most say “no pets”, though the last two we’ve rented have said the same until they met Loki, who is awesomely loveable.

And no, there’s no way we could afford to buy right now, even with a slumping market.  We don’t have a downpayment, and prices where we’d want to live are still high.  Moving further away would just increase our fuel consumption to get Mel to and from work every day and with gas prices the way they are we might as well just live closer and pay a bit more.

Maybe we’ll get lucky and the house won’t sell, and our landlord’s finances will recover some other way.  He really felt bad about giving the news to us, and his long-term plan was to keep the house with good tenants (us) in it as a future investment and this is a blow to him as well.

08
Oct

Conservative Party Will Reintroduce the “Canadian DMCA” If Elected

By Puck 0 Comments
Categories: Rant

It failed once, thankfully, but that doesn’t mean their corporate backers don’t want them to try again.

The Conservative Party has released its platform and it devotes a half-page to copyright that leaves little doubt that it plans to bring back Bill C-61 and continue to support ACTA. According to the platform:

A re-elected Conservative Government led by Stephen Harper will reintroduce federal copyright legislation that strikes the appropriate balance among the rights of musicians, artists, programmers and other creators and brings Canada’s intellectual property protection in line with that of other industrialized countries, but also protects consumers who want to access copyright works for their personal use. We will also introduce tougher laws on counterfeiting and piracy and give our customs and law enforcement services the resources to enforce them. This will protect consumers from phoney and sometimes dangerous products that are passed off as reliable brand-name goods.

Read more at Michael Geists’ site (found via BoingBoing)

The upcoming election has me worried that our multi-party system might just hand the Conservatives a stronger government.  Here in Burnaby-Douglas the NDP and Liberal candidates are running extremely close, and both are legitimate options for a “not a Conservative” vote, but the local elections don’t take that into account and it’s worrisome.

I’m also baffled by the Conservative Party’s platform and that anyone would buy the bullshit they’re spreading.  Their ads are pushing things that nobody I know is incredibly worried about, aside from promises of lower taxes, which any Canadian knows is either a lie or just a reason for them to cut the social services we’re so proud of here.

“Tough on crime” is something that’s supposed to get you votes in Canada?  I got a flyer from the Conservatives that talked about how prisoners have tattooing rooms and that’s a luxury and the Conservatives would get rid of them.  Oh good, so then prisoners can go back to sharing dirty needles to get their prison tats done in secret and they can spread around HIV and hepatitis.  And then they get released…  Surely the Conservatives know that’s the reason for those rooms, but they don’t care.

I can’t even figure out why Canadians are backing them so much.  I’m pro-business, but our Conservatives want to make Canada more like America and surely every single Canadian can see how that’s working out for them there — collapsing markets, unending wars, civil liberties being thrown out the window and corporate interests controlling the government as the entire country seems on a nosedive to complete disaster.

I’m normally a pretty solid Liberal voter.  The party suits my centrist (for a Canadian) beliefs in the free market (with a watchful eye) and social services (for the important things).  The NDP are generally too business unfriendly for me, though I’d rather have them in than the Conservatives.  But I’m actually thinking about voting NDP in my riding simply because he’s the incumbent and from what I’ve seen has the better chance of beating the Conservative.  I don’t want to “split the vote” so that we get some ridiculous outcome like the Conservative candidate getting 35% of the vote but winning anyway because the Liberal and NDP each got 32%.

Even an NDP government gone crazy socialist could be recovered from. But we might not recover from the Conservative party’s pro-corporate, anti-freedom laws like the Canadian DMCA, and I’m scared.

Update: Yup, it appears the NDP is ahead, but there’s a strong danger the Conservative candidate could take advantage of a vote split and win our riding.  Ugh, I’m voting commie this year.

15
Sep

Mel at DropZone

By Puck 0 Comments
Categories: Personal

Mel & I went to Playland on Saturday for the Ebay company picnic, and she and her friend/coworker Moneca braved the Dropzone.  I totally forgot to bring the camera, but another Ebayer brought a nice digital video camera and caught it, though he lost them for the big drop portion.

09
Sep

TR2N Trailer

By Puck 1 Comment
Categories: Cool and Movies

This was shown at ComicCon a while back, but kept getting taken down by Disney for some reason.  The original is still up at Gizmodo but it’s barely watchable as it was captured by a camera phone, and the recording keeps turning sideways.

The version below has been rotated and stabilized by someone with some pretty great video skills.  It’s still low-rez, and a bit chopped in spots but that’s because of the original source.  This is as good as it gets until Disney decides to officially release this online.

Why they haven’t already baffles me.  This trailer gives me butterflies and makes me want MORE.  Besides, “you can’t take something off the Internet — that’s like trying to take the pee out of a swimming pool!” - Joe Rogan, NewsRadio.

Isn’t that a great teaser?  When the lightcycle first appeared I got chills.  Any geeky child of the 80s has to be excited about this.

We’re going to have to have a Tron viewing party soon.

17
Aug

Who Will Be Watching the Watchmen?

By Puck 2 Comments
Categories: Movies

Me!  And lots of other people, probably!

This trailer has been out for quite a while but I haven’t posted it.  Why?  I don’t know, because it looks incredible!

For those who aren’t familiar with Watchmen, it’s a comic book by Alan Moore spanning 12 issues.  It came out out in the mid-80s and is seen as a turning point in the comic book industry.  It’s set in an alternate-1985, where costumed heroes have changed the course of history.  These heroes are based on existing archetypes, so yes, that guy does look like Batman, but he’s called “Nite Owl” and is a cross between DC’s Batman and then-Charlton Comics’ “Blue Beetle”.  (The new Blue Beetle comic from DC is excellent!)

The comic contains many flashbacks to the different ages of superheroes, side-stories, subtext, the psychology of being a costumed hero — it’s a complete deconstruction of the superhero genre and it’s brilliant.

I first read Watchmen back in the early 90s, after being loaned the collected graphic novel by Brad Stewart.  Back then I was a power-fantasy superhero fan, and I have to admit that I didn’t really “get” Watchmen on my first read.  It was just too different from what I expected in a superhero comic book, and I didn’t understand that the art style was purposefully old-fashioned.  I told Brad “it was ok” and he looked at me like I was crazy.  Back then I wanted awesome art and straightforward stories, I admit.

Years later after my comic tastes had expanded — and I had grown up a bit – I read it again and was blown away.  It’s so information-dense that I’ve read it several times since and pick up more on each reading.

So here comes the movie, which Watchmen’s Alan Moore has washed his hands of because of bad experiences with movie studios in the past, and a belief that movies simply can’t tell stories like comic books.  But director Zack Snyder, who directed the super-faithful ‘300′ has been doing the sme for Watchmen, and from the looks of that trailer he’s pulled it off.

Recently he let Kevin Smith watch it.  His reaction?  “It’s fucking astounding!”

“I saw Watchmen. It’s fucking astounding. The Non-Disclosure Agreement I signed prevents me from saying much, but I can spout the following with complete joygasmic enthusiasm: Snyder and Co. have pulled it off. Remember that feeling of watching Sin City on the big screen and being blown away by what a faithful translation of the source material it was, in terms of both content and visuals? Triple that, and you’ll come close to watching Watchmen. Even Alan Moore might be surprised at how close the movie is to the book. March can’t come soon enough.”

07
Aug

Warner Music dinosaur’s death throes

By Puck 2 Comments
Categories: P2P and Rant

Warner Music says music video games must pay more.  Apparently they signed deals that were acceptable but now think they should get even more.

Rock Band tracks cost around $2 each, which doesn’t include the ability to actually just listen to the song on my iPod or stereo.  They do have the value — added from Harmonix and NOT the music industry – of the individual tracks prepared for playing, as well as animations and audience members.

The music industry can go to hell.  They’re a cartel and not needed any more.  Their practices are ruining what should be a creative free market, one ruled by the content creators not by the conglomerates who pay for studio time.

Edgar Bronfman, CEO of Warner can go fuck himself.  Here’s hoping Harmonix basically tells him that and let his artists NOT get any promotion for their tracks because they weren’t included in the game.

Bands:  stop signing record deals!  You don’t need them any more and you’ll make more money publishing your own music online because it goes to you, not all to your record company who then decided that they spent another million on promotion which comes out of YOUR share.

Making money off of music when signing a deal with one of these asshole-filled companies is like playing the lottery.  Only the very, very lucky end up making enough money to have a career.  But if you publish and promote yourself — easy to do online these days — you can make a decent amount of money with little cost and little risk.

05
Aug

Avatars

By Puck 0 Comments
Categories: Avatars

I make a lot of avatars for forums and figured I’d share them here.  I try to keep them to 150×150 and less than 50kb, though some had to be much bigger.

If you’re going to use these please find your own hosting — my site is not an image repository for you.  If you don’t follow this request I may replace these images with something incredibly embarrassing, or turn off remote linking altogether.

Venture Bros.
       

Dr. Horrible

This one’s quite large because of the high number of frames and stuff changing.

Assorted
     

Update:  This post got me looking through my old avatars, most of which are smaller than today’s default and got me off my butt to update my favorite avatar, “Hobbes Club”.  Here’s the original, in the old 80×80 format.  The font isn’t right because a more comic-book font isn’t legible at this small size.

Additionally, Watterson’s word balloons have much more white space and are far less perfectly shaped than this.  I took the time to get this all right in the new 150×150 icon, with a better font (though I couldn’t find a recreation of Watterson’s own) a proper word balloon and even a more ragged outline.

And another bonus, here’s House, bored.


Someone else did the original creation, but it had entire-frame animation and needless extra frames.  I can’t find the original file, but it was in the multi-megabytes, probably around 4MB. I got it down to 171k!

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