Category: Miscellaneous

Anna-Maria drove her brother Josh back down to the States this weekend. Apparently a great time was had by all, until it came time to drive home. She told me her plan was to come home yesterday but she just couldn’t pull herself away — so she didn’t. Early this morning she took off for Home Sweet Canada, but alas the Road Gods had different plans for her. One of her front tires went flat about 9 miles north of Idaho Falls — which she drove back to, to change her “donut” tire for a real tire. She’ll be home late this evening. I, for one, can’t wait. I love her.

I took part in the federal election yesterday. Paul Martin’s Liberals ran surprisingly strongly and will form a minority government in Canada, with the balance of power held by Jack Layton’s New Democrats.

I voted for local NDP candidate Melanee Thomas. It was fairly certain here in Lethbridge that the conservative party would win, but nevertheless I feel disappointed that it wasn’t even close.

The sad thing is, it probably doesn’t matter who gets in. I realize it’s not good to be this pessimistic about voting at such an early age but I think Gary put it best, with his government Cat & Mouse analogy. We’re all just mice voting for the cats whom are perceived as the least hungry.

I upgraded my MSN Messenger to the newest version today. The MSN site explained that there were security problems with their older versions that upgrading would fix. When I actually installed version 6.2, a screen from the installer gave me the option to install three “features.” Good thing I was paying attention and unchecked the default options.

First off, the irony in offering a pop-up blocker for Internet Explorer (IE) is fairly striking. Why does the Redmond giant need users to install an add-on to their product through messenger to make it better? Why not just include the pop-up blocker with IE instead of trying to manipulate upgrading users into using it? The real question is, why didn’t they include a pop-up blocker option with IE in the first place? I believe Microsoft thought blocking pop-up ads was bad for business. Advertisers might not like the fact that they can’t sell you X10 cameras from every webpage you visit if your browser can easily block their ads. Not to mention the fact that Microsoft wouldn’t want Internet Explorer blocking even their own Hotmail pop-ups. Is nothing sacred? I assume that it is Google’s popularity (specifically the Google Toolbar – which, by the way, is excellent) that is signaling Microsoft that maybe now is the time to get on the ball and offer a product worth using.

Which brings me to the second “feature”. Make MSN your default search engine. Why? So we can spend twice as long searching and then end up searching again on another site anyway? Google is the fastest, most reliable, and most entertaining search engine out there. Millions of people worldwide use it as their home page.

Which may be exactly why Microsoft has another default check in front of their third choice, “Make MSN Home your default home page.” They want people to read their ads, use their search engine, and basically do everything Microsoft wants them to.

So was this upgrade specifically to fight off Google? Maybe, maybe not, but reading the Technical Description made me think that this mandatory upgrade isn’t very mandatory at all.

And the nitty-gritty from their security bulletin site:

Technical description:

A security vulnerability exists in Microsoft MSN Messenger. The vulnerability exists because of the method used by MSN Messenger to handle a file request. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted request to a user running MSN Messenger. If exploited successfully, the attacker could view the contents of a file on the hard drive without the user’s knowledge as long as the attacker knew the location of the file and the user had read access to the file.

To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would have to know the sign-on name of the MSN Messenger user in order to send the request.

Mitigating factors:

• An attacker must know the sign-on name of the user
• If the user has blocked receiving messages from anonymous users not on their contact list by placing “All Others” in their block list, the attacker’s messenger account must be on the user’s allow list to exploit the vulnerability.
• The attacker could access files that the user had read access to. If the user is logged into the computer with restricted privileges this would limit the files that the attacker could access.

It looks like this is a pretty minor vulnerabilty. Someone would really have to have it out for you – and know a lot of personal information before being able to exploit this bug.

On the other hand, there are a couple of noteworthy changes in this version. Mobile users now appear with a yellow avatar instead of the standard green, as well their is an option to create custom emoticons or use a selection of new animated MSN ones. The best new feature appears to be an option to create a share folder which makes it easier to share files with other users.

So despite my complaints my advice is this – unless you are completely satisfied with your current version, don’t be shy; go ahead and upgrade. When you do, just remember to turn off the default checks for other MSN “features”.

After almost 11 months of no kayaking, Anna-Maria and I packed up the boats and headed out to Park Lake for some extreme kayaking fun. She had just purchased a new wet suit and was eager to try it out. What we didn’t realize, for some unknown reason, is that Lethbridge is perhaps the windiest place on the entire earth — well I’ve never been to Kansas during tornado season but this had to be close.

When we arrived at the lake the white caps from the waves did somewhat intimidate Anna, but I told her there’s nothing to worry about and we pressed on.

As it turns out there really was nothing to worry about. We kayaked across the lake, got wetter and colder from the wind blowing water up onto us, but really it wasn’t that bad. I tried surfing some of the waves in my kayak but then after a moment decided I didn’t want to have to paddle all the way back against the wind. We ended our adventure about a half an hour later and again packed up the boats.

Later that night we went out to The Blarney Stone with some friends where I ate approximately 1 million 15 cent wings. They were so tasty except for TEX-MEX flavored ones. They needed less TEX and more MEX.

Last night Anna-Maria and I took in a movie at The Mill. The show we saw, though I had my doubts going into it, was “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. (Apple Trailer | Rotten Tomatoes) With a star studded crowd, including Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst & Elijah Wood, and a script by Charlie Kaufman it turns out this movie is actually one of the most original romantic comedies I’ve ever seen. The film itself is brilliant, “an endlessly clever, humorous and strangely moving story that will leave you with a warm heart and smoke curling out of your ears.” However, the thing that is so astounding about it is the fact that it is, at its core, a clean and simple story about ordinary human desires and weaknesses that anyone can identify.

I can’t say this movie is for everyone (in fact when my parents saw it, they walked out — they said it was just too weird) but if you like the type of scripts that writer Charlie Kaufman is famous for, such as “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation” then this is a movie you’ll love. Oh and if you’ve already seen it and would prefer to forget it, you could always book an appointment with Lacuna Inc. and have the memory erased forever…

I got called into work last night because the guy who was supposed to come in didn’t know it was his shift and claimed he was too drunk to be able to work anyway. I don’t know, but I’m thinking if he doesn’t get fired I’m sure he will be skating on thin ice.

Speaking of ice, it sure was disappointing that the Flames didn’t win the Stanley Cup last night. I came home to find Anna sprawled out on the couch looking particularly devastated (ok maybe not that bad but I, like her, like to dramatize things). I told her that even though we would have been really happy and celebrated if they had won, the best thing to do now is just put it behind us. That’s exactly what I’m going to do – and to start I’m going to shave off this beard!

Tonight is the final game of the Stanley Cup. Anna and I bought chips and other food for the game tonight and in case you thought I am just jumping on the band-wagon at game 7, well would a band-wagon jumper have a fine play-off beard? (Caution, some of you that have not seen me in awhile may not recognize me in the following picture).

I plan to shave it off tonight after The Calgary Flames beat The Tampa Bay Lightning. Go Flames Go.

Anna-Maria and I saw a coyote on campus at the University of Lethbridge this afternoon. As luck would have it I happened to have my digital camera with me; so here is the photo.

I don’t know much about coyotes, but I looked up some info on google and here is a quick summary:

• Only 5-20% of coyote pups survive their first year.
• The coyote can run at almost 40 mph.
• Coyotes can breed with both domestic dogs and wolves. A dog-coyote mix is called a “coydog.”
• The coyote is more likely afraid of you than vice-versa.
• Coyotes maintain their territory by marking it with urine.

This particular coyote was not running anywhere near full speed, but he did look somewhat afraid of us. I can’t really blame him though because we were in the Jeep which, in my humble opinion, is enough to put a great deal of fear into any pedestrian – member of the canine family or not. He wasn’t afraid to the point of “marking his territory” however.

In addition to photos of bridges being off-limits, you can add this tourist photo below, (taken by my Dad in 1997), to the type of images soon to be illegal if the NYC Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s proposed ban on taking pictures in the subway system is approved.

Apparently they are planning a general prohibition against photography and videotaping in any of the Big Apple’s subway systems as an anti-terrorism measure.

A group of about 100 photographers held a small protest recently taking pictures of each other taking pictures in the subway.

From the NYTimes:

There was a tense moment when the crowd decided it would photograph a transit police dispatch station at 14th Street. A startled officer came out and suggested that they leave.

“You didn’t say ‘Cheese!'” one of the cheekier photographers said.

Anna-Maria and I have spent the afternoon working on a new blog for French-Canadian actors working outside of Quebec. It’s purpose it to help unite the people across Canada working in French theatre. Unfortunately for English speaking folks like myself, it’s all in French, but hopefully you can enjoy the image of my apple tree in the header.