Month: November 2005

Categories
Uncategorized

Unlikely Graphics

[Slightly repurposed from this posting on The Farm]

The three images shown below are used as the banner graphics on the web

page for a product launch that took place yesterday. Can you guess what

the product is?

Photo: Woman lying on her stomach, smiling at computer.

Perhaps it’s a new line of clothes? New bookstore? Perhaps something from Bed Bath and Beyond?

Photo: Happy man, pumping his fist in the air.

New sports magazine? New place to buy music?

Photo: Happy couple embracing.

Financial planning? Male enhancement pills?

Would you believe they’re for the 2005 edition of Microsoft’s programming tools, Visual Studio Express? That’s right, they’re images used in the promotion of programming tools

— the “lite” versions of their database, SQL Server, and integrated

developments environments for C#, C++, Java and Visual Basic.

While Microsoft is to be commended for not feeding the geek stereotype, I find these images to be a bit…unlikely.

I decided to have a little fun adding word bubbles to these pics…

* Note to Tucows shareholders, the human resources

department and my wife: this sort of thing does not actually happen.

Except for the ops plan; that’s real.

Categories
Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

When Did Movie Theatres Become Police States?

Accordion City writer James Reid and his girlfriend went out a Friday night to see a preview screening of Derailed, which came with a free search-and-seizure procedure:

…the line was moving slowly because they were asking customers to raise their arms so that they could be electronically frisked with a metal detector, and women’s purses were being searched by uniformed security guards. Try to remember that this is Toronto, Canada we’re talking about here, not New York, Tel Aviv or London.

People who submitted to the search (everyone from what I could tell) had their cellphones taken from them and checked at a table set up in front of the theatre and they were given a ticket to reclaim it when they left.

I was having none of this, and checked the back of my ticket stub to ensure that there was no mention of being required to submit to a search listed as a condition of sale.

As my girlfriend and I made it to the front of the line, the guard looked at me and asked me to raise my arms for the search. I politely declined saying “No, thank you”, and proceeded to the ticket taker. I could hear him calling “Sir! Sir!” behind me, but even though I slowed my pace in case he was really going to do something about it, as I had expected, I wasn’t stopped.

The ticket taker took my ticket and I waited for my girlfriend just inside the gate, as her purse was being subjected to a thorough going through by one of the guards.

Since she was there for work, and her deadline was that night, she was not ready to risk not seeing the movie. Her 150 words won’t have room for what happened next.

Her phone was taken from her and put in a sealed plastic bag with a claim ticket, and she joined me where I was waiting, past the gate, and we walked into the theatre together.

To add further insult to the debacle at the gate, near the exits at stage right and left were two uniformed security guards at each door, all four with video cameras scanning the crowd and making themselves very conspicuous.

This was not just a bit of pre-show MPAA theatre, they stood there for the entirety of the movie, red LED’s glowing, scanning the crowd to remind us that we were under close surviellence [sic] and our actions were being recorded.

Categories
In the News Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Because You’re Curious: Ashlee Simpson’s Tantrum at the Bloor Street/Avenue Road McDonalds

A late-night post-drinking snack at McDonald’s is generally a bad idea, but one after having eaten at a great Italian restaurant like Spuntini is even more ill-advised. Worse still is throwing a temper tantrum because you’re not getting the B-list celebrity respect to which you believe you entitled, especially when someone is capturing the whole thing on their cellphone videocamera [2.4MB Windows Media video].

Categories
Geek

DRM Will Ruin Your Life and Kill Your Dog

Okay, perhaps this isn’t the Chick tract parody that Cory Doctorow and the EFF would produce, but DRM Will Ruin Your Life and Kill Your Dog [133K GIF image; some swear words] is pretty amusing…

Accept copyfighting into your heart and you shall be saved! Click the image to read the whole comic.

[P.S. In case you’re not hip to the lingo, “DRM” is short for “Digital Rights Management“.]

Categories
In the News

By Posting this Poppy Image, I’m Courting a Nastygram

Photo: Rememberance Day Poppy.

If you’re Canadian, you recognize the image shown here: it’s a poppy pin, which is traditionally worn on lapels during the days leading up to Remembrance Day (November 11th), the day on which Canadians commemorate the sacrifices made by our veterans.

Here on this blog, it’s been a tradition to honour the veterans that day by posting a poppy image (here are my 2003 and 2004 entries). A number of other Canadian bloggers have done the same.

This may change. The Royal Canadian Legion gave Pierre Bourque some static for posting a poppy image on Bourque Newswatch, something he’s done for the past eight years. The reason:

…one Steven Clark, Secretary, Poppy and Remembrance Committee of the Royal Canadian Legion, who, in an inspired twist of bad PR, fired off a pointed email and demanded that I remove the poppy from Bourque.Com, the biggest and most powerful one-page website in the country.

“The Committee”, reprimands Mr. Clark, “acknowledges your effort to promote Remembrance but, as we do not have control over website content, the use of the Poppy image is not authorized.”

After receiving hundreds of emails in response from Bourque and his readership, here’s what Bob Butt (a man whose surname is so appropriate it’s downright Dickensian) had to say in reply:

“Hi, Sorry you’ve run into this but the poppy is a trademark of the Legion and anyone who wants to use it has to apply. Otherwise it would be all over the place. There are numeorus (Sic) examples where it has been used for sales and other purposes. As it is not in the public domain and because it is a registered trademark of the Legion the organization is taking every step it can to protect it (and I do mean every step). All this can be avoided in the future if you ask to use it on your site and you get the proper approval. Sorry, I know your heart and many others are in the right place. Unfortunately we have to protect this image or lose its use as a symbol of Remembrance.”

Colby Cosh sums up my feelings on this matter quite nicely, so I’ll let him do the talking:

I never thought I was helping to remove a piece of our cultural heritage from the public domain by buying Remembrance Day poppies. And I am certainly surprised to learn that “Remembrance” itself has become anyone’s formal property. I won’t pay for or wear one ever again. And neither should you.

Categories
Uncategorized

November 5th Trivia

Photo: A ferengi from Las Vegas and Joey.

Me and a ferengi at “Quark’s” in the Las Vegas Hilton.

In addition to me and Ashley, November 5th is also the birthday of Armin Shimerman, who played “Principal Snyder” in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the ferengi bartender “Quark” in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

There’s plenty more November 5th trivia in Wikipedia.

Categories
Uncategorized

Happy Birthday, Ashley!

Photo: Ashley Bristowe at the Oscar party, April 1999.

Ashley at the Oscar Party, April 1999. I’ll bet she doesn’t know this photo exists!

Happy birthday to my friend from way back at Crazy Go Nuts University, Ashley!