Tag Archives: god

Make Your PS3 Work Overtime

Gaming, Tech

Have you hooked up your PS3 to your computer via Windows Media Player and discovered that some (or most) of your videos won’t play? It’s baffling how one AVI will play yet another isn’t recognized due to some encoding used on the video.

I’ll let you in on a secret: From Boing Boing Gadgets I learned of PS3 Media Server, an open source, free, multi-encoding app that will make virtually any video play on the PS3. I swear to god, it was a one click set up from the download (there are minor tweaks you can do when you dive into the FAQ section – me being on a single core processor). I loaded it, it found the PS3, and it meshed without effort. The info page boasts basic XBox360 support too, but I haven’t tried it yet.

So far, the only file format I found it can’t process is a flat DVD ISO file. It doesn’t process larger files smoothly due to my single core processor (it would either make the screen flicker or would stall out the video as it played) but you can adjust the compression to allow for that but don’t expect TV quality video.

You may thank me with kisses.

Last Minute Shopping

Tech, Toronto

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

Waxy Hand from the depths

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

Uh, thanks. I'll pass

Uh, thanks. I'll pass

In Times of Economic Troubles…

Celebs and Media, Distractions

…Zack And Miri Make A Porno.

You’ve probably heard of this movie by now. It has nothing to do with Aptow but does have the post-teen comedy sensibilities that he’s been known for and it’s from Kevin Smith. The movie has already gained notoriety for it’s original posters being yanked in the US (portrait shots of the two leads subtlety getting head) and replaced with sarcastic text next to stick figures. Thankfully, Canada has a sense of humour and I get to see Seth Rogan’s happy “O face” every morning on a local bus shelter.

At this point I have to admit that I have a big man/bear crush on Seth Rogan and Kevin Smith: admitted geeks and big funny guys with facial hair, so I’m kind of biased. But after seeing the preview I (and I am sure many others) asked myself “What the hell does Miri see in Zack?” She’s a bit too beautiful to be hanging out/hooking up with someone like Seth in my books, but the trailer makes her look slobbish matching Seth’s re-occurring character choices of the slovenly lovable mensch. It’s typical of Kevin Smith’s movies to have one casting moment where you have to suspend some belief (Uh… Allanis Morrisette as God?). But in getting Traci Lords to do a small part might wipe that all out and redeem his past transgressions.

My second admission is that I, like so many of you out there, have always wanted to be revered/paid for as a sex porno god. If my family is reading, go away. I’ve never acted upon this desire, but there it is.

Husband Meme

Distractions, Personal Bits, Queer stuff

Apologies to my single readers who sit there at their monitors with their bags of Collision Chips and Fantas while they wonder where their life went wrong as they look at blogs on the interweb and consider what to wear when they go to the next Bear bar night and oh god why can’t they find love why why por quoi???

From Gambrinous with Griffonage:

What is his name? Meesh to the family, Michel in Quebec (there’s already a Michele and a Michael in my family so he’s contracted to be contracted).

Who eats more? Me. But he eats more in bed.

Who said I love you first? Me. In his truck. I nearly puked.

Who is taller? I am when we’re standing in the tub.

Who drives most when you are together? He does. But I get bored faster. Mayblubablublabluuuu!

Who’s more sensitive? I would say we’re equally matched. He’ll cry at movies, while I’ll cry at lottery ads.

Who does the laundry? I do. I expect a call from the police when ever he does the laundry because of his patience. He, however, folds.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Facing the bed from the foot, I sleep on the right hand side.

Who pays the bills? Our accounts are combined, but he does all the actual paperwork.

Who cooks more? I do. He’s a bit to meticulous when he follows recipes.

Who is more stubborn? He is. Hands down.

Who is the first to admit they are wrong? Me. I’d rather bask in incorrectness than fight.

Who has more siblings? I do. My four to his one.

Who wears the pants? We share a mu mu on Drunk Sundays. Clean up is a breeze.

What do you like to do together? Pretty much everything. He’s my best friend and husband. I’d not be all that interested if he’s not interested. I know that makes me sound like a creepy conservative housewife, but it’s true.

Who eats more sweets? He does, for medicinal reasons.

Guilty pleasures? Corn chips in bed.

How did you meet? Sly comments on gay.com chat. Then constant exposure due to both of us losing our 9-5 jobs.

Who asked whom out first? I asked him to come along with me to a lesbian bar outside the city. I wound up making out with another guy on the dance floor.

Who kissed first? It was mutual. In a truck. It was fun. Still is.

Who proposed? He emailed my parents for permission. He then sprung it on me in front of our campfire.

His best features and qualities? Have you seen his backside? Heaven. As for qualities: his anger, oddly enough. It reminds me not to take shit from people. And beneath that, there is a thoughtful, kind, smart person that thinks I’m pretty keen.

Catastrophic FAIL

Personal Bits

Last night I sat down to my computer and noticed an odd message, saying that one of the “files on the disk” failed to initialize, resulting in my Taskbar changing itself to look like Windows NT.

Uh. Oh.

Restart.

After a very long time past the BIOS screen, nothing. No log in, nothing.

Restart. Oh god please restart.

Nothing. Dead black screen.

Thankfully I have all my files on a completely separate storage drive. But it looks like a night of disk-humping reloading, rebooting and calling Windows Support to obtain my serial number again. Who’s up for a call to India? Then after that, drivers, applications and preferences. Finally, all my email is gone (take note friends/family!) and I’m hobbling along on web-based interfaces.

If any of you people wish to donate to my “Get an iMac Fund” my Paypal account will be available at the bottom of your screens. Call now!

I don’t know if I got a virus or something from all those old iPhone hack programs were to blame. I do know that if I can’t get it started/fixed, then this will be the most expensive summer I’ve had in a long time.

But, still no ads on Dead Robot Heavy Industries, my readers!

Update:
In some sort of bizzaro world, I wonder if the Large Hadron Collider had anything to do with this? I’m actually one of the “push the goddamned button and let’s see what this baby can do!” kind of people. The web is ablaze with speculation today and all they did was turn the thing on. The actual collisions will be happening later in the year. Doesn’t this whole uproar/hype/geek celebrity suddenly feel like the last 20 minutes of Contact?.

Weather Meme

General

From Electronic Replicant, who says I can remix at will:

How do you cope with hot weather?
Suck it up. Sweat it out!

When does the heat make you most crazy?
When people forget themselves and impose their sweaty meat space presence on public transit.

Where do you go to get air conditioning?
Movie theatres, gym, work, my dad’s (but he likes it 2C warmer than tepid.

Your favorite place to sleep in hot weather?
An open tent with a breeze flowing through. Have not been camping once this summer. Soon, we’ll be in Saugatuck MI, though!

Your favorite hot weather food?
Cold fruit. Any kind that has been in the fridge a long time.

Your favorite people to visit in the hot weather?
We’re getting into having ice cream in the gay village at the end of the day and inviting friends or my Dad along. Turns into a “Oh. My. God. Look at HER” bitch session.

Your favorite way to wear your hair in the hot weather?
Uh. Off?

Usual clothing during hot weather?
Work still wants us in casual dress pants, which I think is 100% sexist, because women are allowed to wear skirts. So I’m usually with pants and an untucked short sleeved dress shirt. When I get home: undies. That’s it.

Your favorite hot weather drink?
I still drink tea every morning. I prefer a glass of anything with the glass 100% full of ice.

Is hot weather good for anything?
It reminds us that winter is just as bad/good.

A TV Prayer

Celebs and Media

Oh great TV gods
Who have blessed us this day
With the eye bleedingly huge
HDTV
May we stand in your plasmatic heat
and thank the day you delivered
to us, your humbled and subservient
couch blobs
This heavenly eye that looks into our souls
and gives us the
2008 Olympics
in glorious 1080i (720dpi via CBC)

I thank you, the TV gods
That I am able to
Catch glimpse of the crotch sweat
on the inside thigh
of the Bolivian cyclist

My life for you.

Tacky Website? Must be Gay

Distractions, Hobbies, Travel

Why are all the gay campsites we looked into for Long Weekend so incredibly hideous?

Well it’s bitter time here at Dead Robot Industries! I’m going to review them and hopefully give you, dear readers, insight as to why gay campsite websites are uglier than drag queens left out in the rain. (SFW means Ok to open. MNSFW means “maybe not safe for work” – Stay out of the “Gallery” sections. NSFW means don’t open it at work, ok? Just don’t)

The Cedars (SFW)
What? A nice layout? A picture that doesn’t shy away from showing the camp area? Photos that are up to date and actually show people having fun? Google Earth map link? On every page? I’m in shock! Oh wait. The Event’s page is fucked – I knew it was too good to be true. Clicking on a date gets you nothing. Nice that they have a Forums and a Guestbook right out there for all to see – very Web 2.0.

It gets a 4 out of 5. No crap and no animated gifs makes me want to visit!

Campit Resorts (SFW)
Okay first off: Frameset: the “Blink” tag of page layout. The Gallery page link at the bottom of the home page frame is dead so click away all you like, however the Gallery link in the nav bar frame leads to images 3 years old. Take that as you will. Table on the right side with the border set to “2”. Classy! The map is in the “links” section and buried within the About page. Whatever that means. I would think that you’d want your guests to find you easy.

To it’s credit, the site is packed with lots and lots of info (I dare to say “dense”). Other than the riot of things going on, I’d have to say I feel comfortable scooting around this site, but the layout is brutal. I’ve been to Campit, and I can say that the website is like your crazy cousin you don’t talk about: nice to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live with it.

I give it 3.5 out of 5. Lose the frameset.

Rainbow Ridge (SFW but rainbowy)
I… ah… oh god… My eyes… I’m blind… I feel sick! Okay enough. You get it. Like an aluminum bat to the bridge of your nose, we’re treated to rainbows on black throughout with white centred text that dissapears as you read on into the flag colours. Ow. Non-tiling backgrounds. Classy!

The site is entirely in long form: nothing in point form to quickly identify what you’re looking for. The photo gallery is a little app that pops up microscopic pictures of other people’s tents, with barely any of the facilities. Hrmmm… And what would a gay campsite website be without it’s own section dedicated to “dancing” (which explains their rec hall – isn’t that a “facility” feature?). The reservations form looks like it was laid out by Robin Williams on a cocaine bender. The Events section proudly announces no new events, sealing my non-desire to spend the $5 to use their rec hall.

I give it 1 out of 5. It makes me want to visit only to see if they’ve painted the trees rainbow colours.

The Hillside (MNSFW)
Oh another black and rainbow motif. How clever. Okay people there’s a lot of stuff to get through here so lets… No… Wait. It’s crap, you know that just by the home page. I’ll save you the trouble and just jump right to the batshit crazy:

Houseboy Needed!
TO APPLY send an e-mail with the requested information & picture(s)…
A slim GWM between the heights of 5’4″ to 5’11” is a plus. This doesn’t mean men with other physical descriptions won’t be considered, however height and weight are important.

Include work and personal qualifications including age, height, weight and full physical description. A photo is a must.

…it’s faster to reply by clicking on the button below to send an e-mail that includes complete qualifications (note above) and photo(s) if possible.

THE MORE INFORMATION YOU CAN PROVIDE THE BETTER.

One word: Yikes.

But it gets more batshit as you go deeper: on the Camp Map and Security Section:

HILLSIDE CAMPGROUNDS DOES NOT INCLUDE A CAMP MAP ON ITS WEB SITE FOR SECURITY REASONS. HILLSIDE’S OWNER DOESN’T WISH TO SHARE SUCH INFORMATION WITH SOMEONE WHO IS NOT AT CAMP. ANYONE WHO VISITS HILLSIDE CAN SEE A HAND-DRAWN MAP IN THE REGISTRATION OFFICE. HILLSIDE IS A VERY LARGE CAMP WITH MORE THAN THREE MILES OF ROADS WITHIN ITS GATES. WE INVITE YOU TO VISIT HILLSIDE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CAMP’S LAYOUT.

Uh. Okay. If I want to visit, I guess I just use a psychic tuned to batshit crazy? Where the fuck is the logic in that? What the hell happened that the owner doesn’t want to divulge to new clients where to spend their money?

0 out of 5. As inviting as going to a creepy, sweaty co-worker’s halloween party by yourself.

Bye Bye Crumberland!

Distractions, Hobbies, Toronto

Torontoist reports (sadly for them, happily for me) that the Cumberland 4 up in Yorkville is closing their doors.

Boo hoo.

I’m all for independent cinema, it keeps the crap at bay and makes Hollywood look like a bunch of money hungry assholes they generally are. But do thoughtful, creative movies have to be shunted to a theatre so god awful that the experience of seeing the film detracts so much from the movie that it becomes just as easy to go rent it at home (and cheaper)?

I was much more sadder when the Uptown shut down, even after the hack job they did to it to keep it afloat.

Family, Secrets. In Repose and Response

Personal Bits, Queer stuff

Weekend Pictures Here

What can you learn of someone within 3 minutes? 30 minutes? 3 hours? 3 days?

This long weekend, we ventured up into the Gatineau area to visit SharkBoy’s “Summer Place” – Notre Dame Du Pontmain to be exact.

It’s a tiny village nearly smack dab in the middle of a massive amount of small lakes about an hour and a bit north of Ottawa, in the Gatineaus. NDdP makes it’s living on the one hotel, the one depanneur and one boat launch and a lot of video rentals. I’ve never been before and I hope I go back. A lot. Mountains rise up out of so many lakes it’s like visiting BC but without the weed. Every morning and evening the sun puts on a display of colours you become drunk with the spectacle. Deer peer at you with those creepy eyes from the sides of the road. Bears have been seen. It truly is one of Quebec’s hidden treasures from the English.

We left late on Friday night to a wall of traffic that spanned downtown Pickering to Brockville, where after 6 hours in the car at 2am, we desperately tried to look for a hotel. All the details of the travel can be found on Sharkboy’s blog. One thing I did enjoy was playing “Senator and the Hooker” in the divey-est hotel on the outskirts of Ottawa that had stucco swipes as wall decoration and other 70s Swiss Chalet motifs (“Spank your bottom? That will be $5 extra, Senator!”).

On the drive we talked a lot about family. The one we started ourselves (cat included) and the ones I was going to meet. As usual, but not so much this time, I felt the apprehension of meeting up with the in-laws and not being able to communicate as much as I’d like. But that always disappears within moments of getting past the front door because SharkBoy’s mom is always so welcoming and friendly (inbetween the “tabanac” and “câlisse”) and we generally communicate in elaborate hand gestures, drinks and the odd translation assistance from SharkBoy’s sister, Syl.

We did eventually meet up and make our way over to SharkBoy’s uncle’s extremely secluded compound after a long drive up, down, through, along swamps and riverbanks. Oddly enough we could see the house we were staying at from his dock, which would have taken 1/100th the time it took to get there if we had walked directly from door to door. Unfortunately the two places are separated by a large river, so unless you’re Jesus, that’s not possible. Visible but secluded. For a reason. He owned the entire mountain behind his house.

Leasing the road to the top of the mountain for a cell phone tower, he’s sitting on a developer’s wet dream of prime cottage land that overlooked the lake. But he wants to keep it to himself for now. That kind of power you don’t come by easy. As we were to learn when the pictures came out. Images of SharkBoy’s dad and his two uncles were presented in all their black and white glory and I got to learn how Romuald became the person who gave me SharkBoy. We also learned of some other stuff that I will respect a certain person’s embarrassment due to certain childhood behaviour, but let’s just say that it involved a chicken and a horse.

Later, SharkBoy’s cousin and her girlfriend piled us into their lesbian truck (who knew it was rampant in his father’s side?) and took us 1/3rd the way up the mountain on the maintenance road to the cell tower. Then we walked the rest of the way. Nearly straight up. For a solid hour. That’s right, this fat, office cube chubbo walked up the side of a mountain to get utterly drenched in sweat (thank god they’re all family now). I also got to spend my first really private moments with Syl and we discussed ex-boyfriends and how sometimes a family’s responsibility is not to mention that we’re dating a jerk. Nothing new or shocking but she managed to make me feel like a brother in those few moments. I also snapped a few shots:

After bombing around on ATVs, we went tubing. First time for me behind a boat where I didn’t fall down within the first couple of seconds of it taking off (I suck at waterskiing).

That night, after saying our bon soirs, we discovered that seclusion has a price: the road back to the highway was washed out in a freak flash flood that came down from the side of the mountain after a short rainfall. Who knew that a mountain could “retain water”? This is where SharkBoy’s family shone: they all came out to the site on their ATVs and trucks to see the damage and within an hour, we had “rebuilt” the road, moved a down tree and scouted ahead the 3 miles to the highway on the ATV to make sure that the road was clear. It was an adventure, to be sure (we could have been at that part of the road during the flood), and his uncle and cousins were actually apologetic for the delay.

The next day the “kids” (without Sharkboy’s mom and aunt) set out to discover the waterfalls at Windigo, a swanky time-share like resort that I’d love to spend a week at some summer time (hint hint). There I saw a frog. Hold your Quebecois jokes. But before leaving, I was struck with the biggest stomach pain right between breakfast and the time we got into the car, which I kept mostly to myself until it started to subside. I wasn’t too chatty that morning. But it passed and I don’t blame anyone’s food…

At this time it was becoming quite evident that one of the guests was not feeling the same emotions for being away for the weekend and would not put down their cell phone for all the texting that was going on. I kept on remembering that when I was their age, I was yearning for not being at family outings either, and would sulk annoyingly over in some corner with a comic or tv show. Kids today (ugh. shoot me. I just wrote “kids today”) have better ways of sulking the fun from the moment by tapping messages to their friends on a small keyboard. I wanted to take them aside and tell them that family time is extremely precious, especially at 40something, and that they should savour the time they have. But of course, I kept my nose out of it. But I did felt old remembering how I behaved exactly the same (sans electroniques). This led to the weekend being cut short by hours (thankfully not by a day) and we managed to get back to Toronto at an extremely decent hour, so thanks teen angst!

In all, a good weekend. I’d love to go back again!