The Mix - April 28 @ 7:30 p.m.

Tired of paying outrageous prices for crappy drinks and cookie cutter music at loud nightclubs packed with Abercrombie & Fitch wannabes? Get in The Mix!

Something to Celebrate!

Date	Time	Description
Good Friday (4/14/2006)	9:15 and 11:15 a.m.	A drama-enhanced morning pondering the sacrifice Jesus Christ made on the cross.
Saturday (4/15/2006)	6:15 p.m.	Special "coffee-house" Easter service with FREE coffee and desserts!
Sunday (4/16/2006)	9:15 and 11:15 a.m.	Arts-enhanced, creative worship service pondering the power of what Christ did on Easter Sunday some 2000 years ago.

Fibs

National Poetry Month as well as Math Awareness Month, and an enterprising screenwriter has combined the two with something he calls "Fibs": poems based on the Fibonacci Sequence. Though interesting, Fibs are not new. Here's one of the best Fib's, from a great compilation.

UPDATE: I forgot the link to the guy's blog!

Back Home

By the way, in case it wasn't obvious, we're back home now. The trip back was a bit more exciting than the trip there. Due to weather we were stuck in the airport all day as our flight kept getting delayed. The airport was PACKED with cranky, frustrated people, but far from getting us down, instead it allowed us to explore and share some quality time, at least as much as possible in the world's busiest airport.

Here are some more photos from the trip.

	At the pub down the street after seeing Iraqtile Dysfunction at Second City. (Second City was awesome!)
	Waiting for the Subway.
	Riding the subway.
	At Joe's Sports Bar watching the Duke game. (They have big screen televisions everywhere!)
	Joe's Sports Bar was packed!
	So packed, they have a vending machine for ear plugs!
	Standing in front of Wrigley Field.
	Standing in front of Sue, the world's largest, most complete, and best preserved Tyrannosaurus Rex skelaton, at the Field Museum. She measures 42 feet long, 13 feet tall, and weighed 7 tons when alive. She's named after Susan Hendrickson, the fossil hunter who discovered her.
	Inside the Egyptian tomb, part of the Inside Ancient Egypt exhibit at the Field Museum. Those are the actual blocks (and actual hieroglyphics) from the tomb in Egypt in the background.
	The lobby of the Fisher Building, where we stayed. Behind the plaque is the Consierge desk. We had floorplan B1 on the 13th floor (yes, there's a floor labelled 13). The 19th floor had a lounge/games room with a foosball table, a bar, a pool table, a fireplace, couches, and a big screen TV. Sweet!
	Time to leave!

That's all for now, I'll have more photos up in the next couple of days.

May 2, 2006

Cool Illusion!

Check out this interesting video illusion that our pastor showed in church the other day.

QuickTime video

"This demonstrates the immense power of top-down knowledge which will actually counter signals bottom-up from the senses, and force an extraordinary illusion in which the sensory information of the present is cancelled by immense knowledge derived from the past"
-- Richard Gregory

Quotes Stuck In My Head

I've had a couple of quotes stuck in my head lately.

The first is from Robert Spritz in The Weatherman:

"Do you know that the harder thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing? Nothing that has meaning is easy. 'Easy' doesn't enter into grown-up life, to get anything of value, you have to sacrifice."

The second is an exchange between Jerry and George in episode 113 of Seinfeld (The Maestro):

JERRY: Get this, he [The Maestro] tells me there are no houses to rent anywhere in Tuscany.
GEORGE: You're renting a house in Tuscany?
JERRY: No.
GEORGE: So what do you care?

Psalm 23:4

Swimmin' with da fishes

Went to the Shedd Aquarium today.

	Dolphins performing in the Oceanarium show.
	Penguins chillin' on the rocks.
	More of the dolphin performance.
	My girlfriend smooching a turtle.
	My girlfriend and I in front of the aquarium, with the Chicago skyline in the background.

More Photos

Posted some more photos on my Flickr page this morning. (It's too much work to post them on the blog too, so you'll just have to look at them there)

Just a Few Photos

Below are some photos from the first few days. All the photos from Chicago can be viewed on my Chicago tag Flickr page.

	Me with one of the Blue Men after the Blue Man Group show. The blue mark on my face was put there by the Blue Man after they took me up on stage from out of the audience to "participate" in the show.
	Me, my girlfriend, and my friend at the Green Mill jazz lounge.
	My girlfriend and I in front of the Cloud Gate at Millennium Park.
	A sign on one of the streets in Chicago.

We're here!

We're in the Windy City now and it's fantastic! The flight was quick, about 1.5 hours, and the first couple of days have been hectic! There's a lot to see and do I don't know how we're going to fit it all in to 10 days. Yesterday we walked around Millenium Park and shopped on the Magnificent Mile, where I got a jacket and three shirts for $115 (regular over $250!). In the evening we went to the Green Mill jazz lounge, one of Al Capone's former speakeasys, then Ginger's Ale House where we had a few pints and watched the Newcastle match.

To say that Chicago is Winnipeg only slightly larger is a huge understatement! Winnipeggers like to delude themselves into thinking that their city is just as good as cities like Chicago (and Toronto!) but once you actually leave the confines of the perimeter highway there's no denying that Winnipeg has grossly missed it's potential. Anyway, more on that later. We've got a big day today. We're going to see the Blue Man Group in the afternoon, then doing more shopping on the Magnificent Mile, and finally closing the day off with an invite only Oscar party at Orso restaurant!

(I've taken a bunch of pictures already, but I forgot the cable to download them from the camera. My friend said he should have one that fits at the office so I'll post some pics as soon as I find one.)

Oh What a Season!

Due to my trip to The Windy City this Friday I played my last Futsal game of the season Tuesday. With a short bench (only one sub!), people playing out of position, and numerous key players missing we almost managed a draw. If it weren't for a heartbreaking lucky bounce with 10 seconds left in the game we would have stolen a point against difficult odds. No matter though, it was a fun game that was well played and served as a fitting end to the season. I don't know what the future holds but I was proud and honoured to be a part of this team. They're a well run, talented, and fun group of guys and should do very well in the upcoming outdoor season. I can honestly say that this Futsal season was the most fun I've had playing soccer since my youth.

I think the following situation sums the atmosphere on this team perfectly: When I told the coaching staff that I had been invited to tryout for another outdoor squad, instead of berating me and sending an email to the manager of the other team saying how poor a player I was they congratulated me, wished me luck, and told me that I would always have a place on their team. Now THAT'S a quality organization.

Here's hoping the snow melts soon!

Who's the real enemy: Esso or Celine Dion?

You think gas prices are inflated? The next time you're filling up at the pump think about the Private Copying Levy. As Michael Geist points out in his blog, the Private Copying Levy in Canada can increase the cost of blank media by as much as 333%! That means an $18 pack of CDs can cost almost $60. (And that's BEFORE taxes!)

What's worse is "while songwriters and music publishers are eligible regardless of nationality, only Canadian recording artists and record companies may receive payments". So even though people are burning quality bands like Tool, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, or the Rolling Stones, the revenue from the purchase of that blank media is helping Canada produce more Celine Dion, Alanis, and Simple Plan.

Perhaps the worst part of the entire scheme is the implied guilt. The levy is paid by manufacturers and importers of the media, and passed on to consumers in the price. So the assumptions is if you're buying blank media, then you must be pirating Canadian music so you should pay a fine immediately. So even honest, law abiding citizens who buy media for backing up business or personal data or authoring home DVD's or photo CD's are paying the fines. While I don't agree with the RIAA lawsuits in the United States either, at least they are supposed to prove you actually committed a crime before they can hit you with a fine!

Almost there!

Four days to go!

That's MY train!

If you've been watching the olympics then you've probably seen the Bombardier commercials: some Canadian tourist notices a train or plane made by Bombardier and gets excited. Then the announcer says "Thousands of Canadians are behind Bombardier, and proud of it."

That's only half the truth though. The announcer should say "Thousands of Canadians are forced to support Bombardier financially, and don't even know it." Or maybe more accurately, "Thousands of Canadians are bent over in front of Bombardier and getting..." well, you can complete the sentence yourself.

CBC's The National ran a story this evening about hundreds of Bombardier jets sitting idle in a field in Arizona. Guess who owns those jets? You do. That's right, you, your neighbour, your co-workers, every Canadian taxpayer owns a piece of those jets rusting in the desert. Here's how it works. Bombardier builds a bunch of jets that nobody wants to buy. Export Development Canada, a Federal Crown Corporation, takes billions of Canadians' tax dollars and loans it to foreign companies whom the regular banks consider "high risk" with the condition that the companies use the money to purchase the aforementioned jets from Bombardier. Now, those high risk companies have defaulted on those loans and EDC is stuck with the planes. Since EDC isn't an airline, the planes sit in the desert and collect dust.

As if that loan/bribe scenario wasn't enough, the government still routinely coughs up billions of dollars in direct subsidies to Bombardier (because they still can't seem turn a profit, even with a bribed customer base) with the excuse that the company "provides jobs". Who are they kidding? I mean come on, if the government's going to do that, then skip the middle man, give the billions directly to the workers, and send them home to be productive already!

Yes, our roads are terrible, our military is an international joke, our taxes are outrageously high, and people die waiting for health care, but still the government finds it more important to use your money to buy airplanes that don't fly.

More Cartoon Rioting

More riots have erupted over controversial and offensive cartoons.

Fighting fire with fire

The Freakonomics blog has a link to an Israeli anti-semetic cartoon contest created in response to the psychopatic Muslim protests. Now excuse me while I go watch Curb Your Enthusiasm...

Special thanks to Cutie for giving me the link ;)

This just in...

In the spirit of Duck and Cover, Air Canada has banned pictures of Muslims with hats resembling bombs on all flights and in their lounges. Real Muslims with real bombs still allowed.

Getting Excited!

Less than two weeks to go!