This idea came up when I was bitching about the pictures condo developers show for their buildings. In Toronto, there is the CN Tower one of the tallest free standing structures in the world. Being so iconic most condo developers feel compelled to show the CN Tower even if they no where near. I mean if everyone can see the tower from everywhere, maybe we should just have long cable wires connecting major intersections, and everyone would just zip-line their way home and to work. Of course that would just mean a massive line up for the elevators at the CN Tower during rush hour.

Danny

Yeah

All my lecture notes would eventually turn into something like this, back when I was in university.

– Alex

The guys at Valve are hyping up Portal 2 by creating an ARG around the first game. A brief history of events are recorded for awesome. Though, it appears that Valve has forgotten about their flagship game. Nerf NOW!! has nailed it.

In unrelated news, new Touhou game: Double Spoiler. That sort of killed by Sunday.

– Alex

Going to sleep at a regular time has always been a struggle for me. I believe this all started with my dad’s strict sleeping schedule. If I was not in bed by 9pm he would completely freak out. There was an absolute silence rule everyday 10:00pm, and any phone calls to the house after that time was impossible as my dad would leave one of the phones off the hook. Any and all noise would wake my father from his feather light sleep, which would result in him yelling and cursing loudly for at least an hour.

This didn’t stop me entirely though, throughout the years after lights out, I developed the skill of circumventing his curfew. My father would be awake by 5 am, so if I timed my attacks for around 11:00 pm to 3am I would be relatively safe. What did I do at this time of night you ask? Majority of the time, I would find the phone he unhooked in the house and reconnect it, here I would have multi-hour long sessions discussing life and philosophy with my friends. Sometimes if I was feeling extra adventurous I would sneak out of the house. This was a delicate task as my father would usually sleep in the living room where the entrance was, and hence I mastered opening and closing of doors without a sound. Most of the time I would end up at a friends house for 1 or 2 hours and return home without a hitch, but sometime I was caught during his nightly patrols, and I would hear hours of yelling and cursing. What was extra tricky was sneaking people into the house, which I’m not sure why I even bothered as there was nothing to do in my room. Nonetheless this task was far easier to get them out then it was to in.

So my days before high school consisted of coming home immediately after school, homework from school, homework from my dad, eat, going to bed, chatting/sneaking, then sleep. After high school, the sneaking continued until university where I decided I had enough of this shit.

After typing this I realize now, that I sleep late because I never developed the habit of sleeping early…

Danny

Recently, my coworkers pooled together to pay for a ping pong table.  They managed to get over twenty people from the company to chip in.  The table was an instantly success.  People really got into the game, they started to bring their own paddles and change into shorts before playing.  Soon a tournament was formed to determine the best player at our company.  To my surprise it was the most laid back person at the company who won the tournament.  It turns out they use to play for a pro junior league back in their old country.  How crazy is that?  I am always amazed at people with hidden special abilities.  What are you guys hiding?

Danny

Personally, I would keep playing the demo even if my sword got smaller. I’ll just pretend I’m playing a rogue class or that I some how managed to compress my awesomeness. Therefore this patent is stupid.

Danny

Hey

Nyoro~n.

– Alex

Recently, someone I know received a collection call for a credit card debt that was 6 years old. This card was not something she was even aware of and because of the high interest the amount had tripled. The collection agency threatened her with legal action, and conned her into signing some documents that stated she acknowledged the debt.

If only she knew that in Ontario, if the debt is older then 2 years and you don’t acknowledge it, they can’t take legal action against you. As her debt was older, it had a 6 year limit, which she reached. So if she had just hung up, and ignored them completely, they could do nothing. But because she had signed a form asking for more information the 6 year limit is reset.

Thankfully we found out she emailed her signature to the wrong place

Danny

Jesse Schell gave a talk recently at the DICE summit about gaming and the recent trend of games like Wii Fit, Mafia Wars, and Guitar Hero.

He says “We live in a bubble of fake bullshit, and we’ll do anything to get to what is real.” The small sense of connection with a real tangible artifact in the real world (like a plastic guitar) is such a gratifying and novel feeling, versus the six degrees of separation we normally have with the things we do.

Why cook food when you can buy pre-packaged TV dinners? Why have real friends when you can have celebrities you can use to fill in your Dunbar number? Why purchase stocks and bonds when you can invest in exotic mortgage-backed securities, which somehow are related to a house that no one really owns? It’s almost enough to make you wanna go all Salinger and call everyone a big fat phony.

(Schell then goes on to talk about achievement points, and how companies in the future will turn everything into a goddamn slot machine for fake money.)

– Alex

We were talking about Wizard of Oz game, and we though wouldn’t it be cool if they decided to make video games of other classics, such as Oliver Twist?  My goodness they are running out of ideas…

Danny

This burger sure beats eating at OWL’s (Korean restaurant).  I ate at 3 separate locations of this stupid chain and had STEEL WOOL in my pork bone soup every time.  For those that don’t know what steel wool is click here.  Serves me right looking at my food too carefully.

Danny

This comic accurately reflects my attitude towards graveyards. Huge waste of space. If you want to leave a trace of your presence on the world after your death, upload a pornographic torrent with your picture embedded in it. It’ll be on the internet forever.

Also, the title is sort of misleading; a tombstone is actually a bad birthday present. It makes people think that you want them dead. But, you might be thinking, “isn’t your birthday the time of year where you contemplate your ephemeral existence in the face of the swirling maelstrom of darkness that is eternity?”, to which I say, cheer up buddy.

– Alex