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Kayaker Drowned

It’s been a dangerous summer for boaters in Alberta. There have been 6 drownings in the last six weeks, and one that hits somewhat close to home. Linda Englehart, a Calgary kayaker who paddled Southern Alberta rivers and with the ORCKA club died Monday following a mishap on the Kicking Horse on Saturday.

I have never paddled with Linda, but she did communicate with the ORCKA club on their website and had planned at one point to join us on the trip we took down Box Canyon last month.

More details about the tragic loss from the ORCKA website.

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McAfee SiteAdvisor Phishing Quiz

A few weeks ago I received a comment on one of my flickr photos that was an obvious phishing attempt. I promptly erased the message but just to be safe, I emailed my friends and family and warned them to be on the lookout for such dangers on the web. I soon realized that my parents, for example, have no idea what phishing is, and probably many other folks out there don’t either.

Take McAfee’s short ten question phishing quiz and see if you know how to recognize a real site verses some malicious site after your passwords and bank accounts, and if not, educate yourself in the process. I scored 9 out of 10 — somehow the fake Amazon site tricked me.

How well did you do?

Update: The quiz is gone.

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A Night at the Opera

This YouTube clip is of a scene from “A Night at the Opera” with The Marx Brothers. To simulate a foreign language, lines of dialogue that were meant to sound foreign were reversed when the film was originally made. That is, the foreign language is just English played backwards.

It’s not too spectacular, in fact it’s just an honest translation of what the other characters asked him to say but here is the audio I reversed: A Night at the Opera Reversed.

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Maxed Out

Maxed Out

Maxed Out (trailer) is a fascinating documentary about our “credit” culture.

Maxed Out takes viewers on a journey deep inside the American style of debt, where things seem fine as long as the minimum monthly payment arrives on time.

With coverage that spans from small American towns all the way to the White House, the film shows how the modern financial industry really works, explains the true definition of “preferred customer” and tells us why the poor are getting poorer while the rich keep getting richer.

Hilarious, shocking and incisive, Maxed Out paints a picture of a national nightmare which is all too real for most of us.

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Busy Week

It’s been a busy week. One of those weeks where you don’t have time to do much, but at the end of the week, you ask yourself—well, what did I actually accomplish? The only thing I can say for sure is, I DIDN’T have time to write on the old web page. Fear not, after another week or so, I should return to my regular blogging schedule… and also get to all the stuff I’ve been too busy to get to.

Wow, this post is lackluster. I’ll try to spice it up with a blurry photo and story of the bear I saw last weekend in Waterton:

Bear

This bear was down in the town-site very close to Cameron Falls. Park Rangers surrounded it and kept noisy tourists (and photographers) at a distance.

Suddenly we heard a loud bang and the bear started running. Then lots more bangs and pops (and some might say explosions) as the rangers made more noise to scare the bear away from the town.

One lady we talked to afterward said the bear came running up the trail very close to where she and her grand daughter were and the excitement was enough to bring the little girl to tears.

Nobody was hurt, and the bear was just a little scared. It left town without further incident.

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A Glimpse

I just looked in the fridge and discovered the leftovers that I planned to eat yesterday were still there. Putting two and two together, I quickly realized that my rather slender girlfriend and I FORGOT TO EAT SUPPER LAST NIGHT! At least the movie was good— I think.

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Platform

Platform

Just for fun, the motion graphics fans out there might enjoy the stop action magic of Platform from motiongrapher.com.

“Smith & Foulkes used a Canon Digital SLR camera linked up to a laptop allowing them to capture frames and play them back checking the shots as they went along. By shooting digitally Smith & Foulkes ended up with a much larger image size to work with when compared with the normal 35mm motion picture frame. These frames were then taken into After Effects and Photoshop for a clean-up where people and rigs from shots were removed. A final grade was then added in Flame.”

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Wikiback

I just finished installing a new wiki for anyone interested in the phenomena of backmasking. It’s called Wikiback. It’s the first wiki I’ve ever setup, but I’m hoping it will be a benefit to those looking for more information.

It hasn’t got a lot on it yet, but anyone interested in adding backmasking information is welcome to edit it.

Update: I decided to delete wikiback from my website because the code was too hard to maintain and was being constantly edited by spam bots.

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Indiana Jones is Back

Queue the John Williams theme song, finally a movie from a franchise worth watching is under way.

The Man with the Hat is Back

Indiana Jones

For the first time since 1989, Harrison Ford dons the familiar costume on Thursday, June 21, 2007, as the upcoming Indiana Jones adventure begins production under the direction of Steven Spielberg. The new Indiana Jones movie is set in the 1950s and stars Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett, John Hurt, Ray Winstone and Jim Broadbent. The Lucasfilm Ltd. production will be released by Paramount Pictures worldwide on May 22, 2008.

Please make it a good one Mr. Spielberg.

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The Bridge

The Golden Gate

More people choose to end their lives at the Golden Gate bridge than other other place in the world. A couple of years ago I read an article about this fact in the New Yorker titled, Jumpers by Tad Friend.

The article inspired director Eric Steel to film the Golden Gate Bridge for a year. His film crew caught 23 suicides, missed one and also recorded a man saving a girl from jumping by grabbing her jacket and physically pulling her off the edge of the bridge. They also captured a failed attempt when a boy survived his jump and was kept afloat by a Bay Area seal until the coast guard arrived to rescue him.

The camera crew vigilantly called the bridge authorities when they observed clear signs of someone about to jump. In doing so, they foiled six near suicides.

Steel took criticism for the film after he lied about his intentions in order to get permission, saying it was a documentary about a day in the life of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The film is called, The Bridge (trailer). It first aired in September 2006 and was released on DVD June 12th, 2007.

San Francisco columnist Violet Blue gives a very interesting review of the film and includes a Q & A mp3 with director Eric Steel.

Previously: Golden Gate Bridge: Suicide Magnet and If People Played More Boardgames.

A few notes on a Golden Gate Bridge suicide barrier after the jump:
Continue reading “The Bridge”