The phone rings last night and it’s the Old Audio Dude (my third in line brother), he’s coming to Toronto with Heather and The Mop, my incredibly thick-haired nephew. No really, this kid’s hair is incredible considering he came from our gene pool of hairy backed, thin-on-top family. He can take solace (or sadness?) in knowing that no Mii editor, no Xbox avatar creator, no PS3 Home builder, will every be able to recreate his large, unruly mane.

I digress.

He’s here in town and to give Heather the day to herself, SharkBoy and I are going to treat him to a march down Queen West and a movie (Marley and Me). I think there might be robot shopping involved. Expect pictures. What makes me feel incredibly old and expectant, is the fact that he’s the exact age when I started to come with my Dad to Toronto on business trips and run around alone on the subway downtown (yeah, they use to let 13 year old kids wander the streets alone back in the 70s).

I’m slightly weirded out that this is how the legacy is passed on - trips to the Silver Snail with $20 in his pocket, a ticket to a movie and popcorn, chased down with big gulps of sugar water. That arcade is closed so I can’t show him that - he’s voiced his desire to plug into our PS3/Wii/Xbox combo until his eyes bleed, anyway. If I had more time I’d take him to the Science Centre but that’s too late. Oh well, we’ll teach him the fine art of shopping. Every young lad should learn that early.

(Via BoingBoing)

Okay boring one out of the way first: Flickr tells me this was my most viewed picture for last year:

The best “Husband” Image for 2008 goes to “Beach Relaxio at Saugatuck”

The Runner up best “Husband” picture is also the Best “Picture from Disneyland”:

Best “Involved With Enviroment” image goes to “Huge Bollocks!”

Next, the best “Brush With a Homemade Celebrity” Image goes to “Lack of Faith”!

For the “Most Creative Use of Clippers” award, we give it to “Hot DJ”

The award for “No Colour Manipulation” image goes to “Husband on a Dock”!

Best “Well, DUH” image goes to “Crew’s Fire Saftey Plan”

For the best “Faux Arty Farty” shot, we give you “Ball of Burn”!

But the “All Round Ultimate Best”, in my humble opinion, would have to be my depthy, curious picture of a hybrid cauliflower and a cat:

It’s getting desperate out there people. In times of economic trouble, having a couple skills on your CV is a great way to survive, but let’s not lose our dignity, ok?

Graphic Designer with Mailroom Experience

Looking for reliable individual with Valid Drivers license and the ability to work in a diverse atmosphere.
Must be able to scan, sort, edit hardcopy materials.

Must have knowledge of portable scanners.

Looking for someone with switchboard and admiistrative knowledge.

Microsoft office,adobe,excel,and knowledge of the web access.

One - two years experience.

Why? Because I don’t want pictures of me rolling around in bright sparkly confetti to wind up on Sorry I Missed Your Party blog, that’s why! (SFW if you can handle puke)

(Via Boing Boing)

I’m guessing you’re love/hating these lists right now so I’m just going to post this now before the year is up: enjoy the best and runners up of each 2008 month. Newcomers to Dead Robot Heavy Industries may find this curious, old-tymers may find this redundant. Woot!

January:

I write an angry letter to Dalton McGuinty, premier of Ontario (Yes, lower case “p”) as my Dad sat waiting in St Mike’s emergency ward after 24 hours (I had started to write it in my head at the 12 hour mark). Has anything changed? Well I’m getting spam from the premier’s office regularly, snail mail and eblast. I doubt the wait times are any better, but thankfully we don’t have to test it any more.

Runner up: Some of my 2008 predictions come true! I’m Miss Cleo!

February:

Restaurant Makeover, still a villain? This post is still getting daily page reads nearly a year on. While I have not watched the show since posting this article, I suspect they’re still making it (nor do I care enough to google it to find out). However I do officially take Bulldog Cafe off my deathwatch. It’s still around with a healthy clientele, apparently!

Runner up: My iPhone Wallpaper-a-Day posts, that lasted approximately 18 days! I suck!

March:

While my entire Vegas/LA adventure was fun, I would have to say the drive through the desert was a highlight. To this day, I will never forget the stillness, the silence of the desert.

Runner Up: A co-worker who “gets me” and I discuss an upcoming operation in a crowded elevator.

April:

I recall all the celebrities I’ve come in contact with. Including their snot.

Runner Up: I get upset with a forums moderator who recommends a crappy iPhone hack to all who will listen. I’m still amazed to this day how passionate I was about the whole iPhone hacking community. I even started notes for an online book…

May: Despite my dad being nearly too ill to attend, we rocked Empty Bowls again. This is one of my favorite spring events (other than Sharkboy’s birthday, of course).

Runner Up: My England memory installments. It’s long and boring and self indulgent. Just like a blog!

June:

After I wrote Pride Tips for Out Of Towners, I noticed that my page views shot up. I instantly felt kind of bad for being such a bitter and angry representative for Toronto Pride, but I do stand by my work.

Runner Up: I wipe out my student loan, avec memories!

July:

One of my Toronto-Teen landmarks closes. I recall how much money I actually spent in that dirty arcade. Oh well… (fires up his PS3).

Runner Up: While I had a monthly record 4 posts about the evil of Rogers, I have to say the second best was relating the two attention starved gym bunnies behaving like Walter and Perry.

August:

Such a difficult month to choose. The post about me worrying about a jockstrap, not the movie Jackass? The painting over a memory? The FanExpo post, complete with fun pix? No, I had to choose my critiquing crappy gay campground websites. So bitter. So mean.

Runner Up: My retelling of our visit to SharkBoy’s “Summer Place” where I climbed a mountain and got super sweaty.

September:

I and a barista from my local Starbucks share a moment.

Runner Up: I fart. In public. Always funny.

October:

We did a lot in October: Zombie Walk, Visiting family from various cities, Art With Heart auction and some free theatre, provided to us via the Playwright Brother. All were great but I have to single out the new roommate who lives above us now. Still slightly noisy, but not so much.

Runner Up: My first Nuit Blanche was fun, if not entirely curious.

November:

While I loved Milk as a movie, I’m still kind of wondering why the best gay roles are going to straight people. Granted I can’t see Lance Bass with this level of acting ability, but it is somewhat disappointing.

Runner Up: Halloween on Church Street is becoming more of a frat boy drinking party as the night goes on.

December:

Still stinging from layoffs within my job bubble, I choose to remember the advice I give about plasma TVs

Runner Up: Mind numbingly stupid Craigslist Ads. I don’t begrudge the bad grammar or the spelling, but I do take umbrage towards how some people market themselves.

Next up: My fave pictures for 2008!

Welcome to that zone between holiday events where a weird calm truce exists between the stress of Xmas and the drunken powder keg of New Years.

Since I’ve been unimpressed with my workplace with a layoff a week before the holidays and the arrival of a new gaming system at Casa RoboShark, (We’re “deadrobot” and “sharkboytoronto” respectively on the Sony network), I haven’t been in the mood to sit in front of a monitor for the last couple days. Judging by my RSS feed and various other outlets, not much of you netizens did either.

Sharkboy has been documenting most of Xmas this year. I recommend the “Switcheroo” post where, as usual, he proves that he is the utter master in gift giving surprises. I got punk’d and good. I’ve said before that I give bad gift. I can’t keep a surprise, I get the wrong thing, etc. Like all good overlords, SharkBoy preyed upon this weakness of mine and got me good.

Xmas dinner with Da, The Brother Playwright, Sharkboy and myself was perfect. We had Turkey-in-a-box that was delicious and more food than you could shake a stick at. Again, SharkBoy has pictures of our disastrous first attempt at a bear cake here. The rest of evening was punctuated with digesting and good deeds. On the way home we helped a slightly inebriated woman get to her home after she fell three times on the ice. Merry Xmas, titanium hip!

Speaking of gifts, I plugged in the Wii Fit we got for ourselves and the fucking thing tells me I’m obese. Back under the TV credenza it goes. Fuck you, fucking Wii Fuck Fit.

Boxing day we were up with the dawn for illegal boxing day sales (non-Canadians should know that it’s ironically illegal for a store to be open on Dec 26 unless in a designated “tourist area”, like… uh… a city) and the twinge in my back I felt starting all last week was growing to a rumbling pain, exasperated by quick slips on sidewalk ices. You know the graceful, one foot, Brian Orser style “WOOP” you do when you let your guard down as you walk one of Toronto’s many unshoveled or de-iced sidewalks. My back pain grew steadily. Regardless, we were in HMV/Futureshop/BestBuy well before 9am on Boxing day (weird side note: HMV at 830am was like a Bear411.com reunion. I saw so many live profiles it was weird…) and judging by the consumerist frenzy, there is NO economic strife. I’m convinced it’s a media manufactured myth: At BestBuy there was a man dragging a 42″ HDTV, PS3, armload of games and Home theatre set up to the cash.

At this point I would like to point out that Blu Ray movies on a 50″ TV is like angels coming down and spitting heavenly mana into your eyes. And I have not experienced a WOW moment with a home gaming system in a long time since Donkey Kong for the N64. Of course, I’m talking about Little Big Planet. Who isn’t?

Yesterday I spent the entire day in pain. At one point I couldnt get myself upright in bed. With tears running down my face, I managed to stand and move around a bit. SharkBoy tore himself away from the PS3 long enough to make dinner and help out but by bed, I was high on back pain meds and slept on my stomach all night. To my surprise, in the morning, I had very little pain. Knock wood it stays away today.

We’re going brave the rain (remember folks, it’s not global warming, there’s always a thaw just before the new year cold snap!) and go see a real movie before we go house-squirrely. Meanwhile, why not peruse some of my Xmas shots here?

I was going to steal StevieB’s video find but this one works for me. It’s how I see Sharkboy, every time he makes me popcorn.

(Via Gizmodo)

Astroboy The Movie. Hopefully the CGI won’t suck and they’re true to the 1950s original manga.

From the trailer, proof it may not suck:
1. Big noses on the two scientists.
2. Rapid pulverizing of rock as he “flies” through a mountain, headlight eyes blazing.
3. Popping out of Mt Fuji.

Possibility it may suck:
Nicholas Cage.

Someone we know is getting a fist full of Argentinean Pesos for Xmas. When I googled the exchange I discovered the abbreviation for this currency is “ARS”.

SharkBoy and I have been emailing each other, talking about getting some ARS:

SB: I went to the money exchange place across the street, it’s now a Greek restaurant, opening day for it too… I didn’t even realized it was close…
DR: Okay don’t worry. If you don’t find ARS then we’ll think of something else. But don’t kill yourself looking for ARS.
SB: I’ll go look for ARS after work, I like ARS, your dad will totally appreciate the ARS too. I wonder how much I’ll have to pay for ARS for your dad.
DR: I’m glad we have enough this year in our budget to cover our ARS. Can you believe how much ARS we can get for a dollar? I hope the ARS doesn’t fall flat in the next while.
SB: I hope your dad enjoys all these ARS. The lady at the money exchange place had a lot of ARS, let me tell you Baby Got ARS. If the dollars goes up, it will quite a kick in the ARS

Badabing!

…but it might save you money/ink if you use it.

Ecofont is an Opensource font (donations are accepted) for all platforms that, according to SPRANQ, should reduce your ink usage by 20%. How? By inserting tiny holes in a thick-ish Sans Serif font.

The logic is there but why not just reduce the font size in all your printing? Or turn off “BOLD”? Admittedly it would work if you’re printing a lot of banner/header style type and don’t mind about typography, but I’m not convinced.

My co-worker turned me onto the TTC/police Ebay pages where you can find a bevvy of unclaimed lost and found items, like sunglasses, jewelery and Hindu god icons (?).

I love how the person challenged with setting up these auctions uses a disembodied mannequin hand to show relative sizes:

Waxy Hand from the depths

It’s also nice to see people refusing crap merchandise when they see it:

Uh, thanks. I'll pass

SharkBoy: that car in font of us must have front wheel drive. It keeps going “vuurrrrr”.

DeadRobot: How does it go?

SB: Vuuuurrrrr.

DB: interesting.

SB: Sort of like “The Rural Juror”

DR: I prefered “Urban Furor”