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Almost nothing in this world is a sickening to me as the story of an innocent person on death row. Thankfully, this is one case where the decision to kill the wrong person has been reversed.
The West Memphis Three Have Been Freed After 18 Years in Prison.
My friend Shannon Phillips is running for the Alberta NDP nomination for the Lethbridge West riding. I’ve put together a website to help get her message out.
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The Bad Review Revue
Transformers: Dark of the Moon: “Director Michael Bay, Hollywood’s answer to the Antichrist, isn’t primarily interested in your soul, though his movie does a pretty effective job of sucking that away (and sucking, in general).” — Lou Lumenick, New York Post
Zookeeper: “Unfortunately, nobody had the good sense to call the comedy authorities and shut this Zookeeper down.” — Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail
Cars 2: “Cars 2 runs out of gas. It’s on fumes — and some of them pretty noxious. There may be enough color and motion to initially interest children, but the plot will lose them, and boredom may follow.” — Tony Macklin, tonymacklin.net
Bad Teacher: “If you’re looking for a funny comedy about a cynical, hard-partying school teacher transformed by his students into a paragon of pedagogical awesomeness, skip Bad Teacher and go rent School of Rock instead.” — Dana Stevens, Slate
Larry Crowne: “Even if you wander into this congealed mess with nothing more demanding in mind than to spend a little time with two charming favorites, do not expect Forrest Gump or Pretty Woman.” — Rex Reed, New York Observer
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Simon Singh on Backmasking
Watch on A Dramatic Demonstration of the Power of Mental Frames on YouTube.
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Atlantis’ Final Launch
It’s the end of an era as the the Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off for its last flight this morning. Watching Atlantis lift off gave me a great shot of nostalgia from the early days of the shuttle program when I was a kid. Here are some screen shots I took from NASA’s broadcast this morning.
Once again this year, the ACFA Regionale de Lethbridge is hosting a Saint Jean Baptiste Day celebration. It’s going to be held this Friday, June 24, 2011 at Cite des prairies — Mayor Magrath & 6th (it’s the French school / community centre) from 3:00pm to 10:00pm.
Please come out to the free celebration and enjoy:
“Bbq, inflatable games, drinks, face paint, free shows including the multilingual world beat musical band from Edmonton : Le fuzz. There will be more…!”
St. Jean Baptiste Day, it turns out, started out over 2000 years ago in the pre-Christian Europe as a pagan solstice celebration originally held on the 21st of June. With the arrival of Christianity the holiday was moved a few days later and has been celebrated on the 24th ever since.
Here is some other interesting info I picked up on the web:
In the beginning, Saint-Joseph had been designated as the patron saint of New France (just like Saint-Patrick is to Ireland). The problem was that his Holy day is in March and the Quebec climate during that time of the year is not very favourable for celebrating. It is for this very practical reason that Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day became more popular, the end of June being a great time to have fun outside. Today, the holiday has lost its religious meaning but has kept its traditional name.
You know that whole, “Kiss me, I’m Irish” meme? I wonder if a t-shirt reading, “Kiss me, I’m French” would work and do you think it would be rude to expect a “French” kiss? It seems reasonable.
Lastly, if you are not in a place that celebrates St. Jean Baptiste, then you can at least appreciate some Quebecois culture with this recipe for poutine, a traditional French Canadian delicacy.
Poutine (Canadian fried potatoes with gravy and cheese curds)
Poutine (poo-TEEN, or puh-TSIN) is a popular fast food in the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec. The name means “mess” in French, and that it is. Poutine’s popularity has spread throughout Canada since the dish first appeared in the 1950s. This recipe makes 2-3 servings.Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds French fries, cooked and hot
2 cups Cheddar cheese curds, broken into chunks
2 cups hot, Beef gravyPlace the hot French fries in a large bowl or individual serving bowls. Sprinkle over the cheese curds, then pour over a liberal amount of the hot beef gravy. Serve with a fork.
Photo by Jeff Milner 2010
Pictured above is some poutine I had the last time I was in Quebec. Yum.
There are only a few people from my elementary school that I’m still in touch with. One of those people is Eric Bates.
I was friends with him all throughout elementary and high school. In particular, I remember playing around on 3D Studio and a very early version of Photoshop with him in Bobby Salmaso’s drafting class. We were also known to play a networked game of Doom during many lunch hours. He had some pretty advanced 3D modelling skills, even in those days, and I have always been a bit jealous of his talent.
Outside of school we worked on a project together to recreate a map of our high school on Duke Nukem 3D. His attention to detail and the way he constructed complex warping methods around the map to give the illusion of a multi-floored building blew me away. I think he liked my ample use of glass and the way one could simulate an experience of shooting out the windows next to the cafeteria. There was something cathartic about seeing all that shattered glass spray out on the floor.*
Eric and I are still in touch — though not very much now that he lives in Japan Australia. He’s still animating and his latest piece, Sayonara was just featured on Cartoon Brew. Here it is:
Sayonara from Eric Bates on Vimeo.
Here’s his description:
A short story about two unlikely friends saying goodbye. A young man named Charles just lost his home. He spends one last day with his best friend, a sea turtle, before moving on.
This graduation project was made while at the Kyoto University of Art and Design. It brings together a lot of the research I had done over the three years I spent in Kyoto, and is based abstractly on my own experiences living in Japan. Most of the concepts relate somehow to my experiences, friends, foods, things I saw, and things I felt over this time; in particular the idea of saying goodbye to close friends.
He’s also created a making of video. Fantastic work, Eric. We always knew you were destined for greatness.
*It turns out, simulating shooting up a school in no way makes one actually want to shoot up a school — but if this had been a few years later, we probably would have been too worried about what others thought to make the map.
Photo by Janson Smith
I went to Castle River Rodeo Campground again this year with my good friend Andy for the long weekend kayaking festival. This was my 6th year participating in the event and once again it was a really good time.
Photo by Janson Smith
Organizer, Chuck Lee, and his crew of volunteers put on a great event each year with all sorts of river runs and clinics available for paddlers of all levels. Andy and I hit up the “Upper-Upper Old Man” and also the section known as “The Gap”. We also ran the Castle River Falls and the Castle Canyon run. Here’s a video from near the headwaters of the Old Man River shot on the GoPro HD Hero 960 that I was given for Christmas. (Which I love by the way).
Each year they have a boat stacking competition — we were eliminated in the semi-finals — which is too bad because the winning team each got a brand new helmet. Here we are in a round where we did NOT get eliminated.
Photo by Janson Smith
This year I helped start a new tradition that they’re now calling H2O Limbo. Just Liquid Sports provided the prizes in three contests — one for men, women, and kids and I came in second in the mens which earned me a new pair of neoprene gloves! (Thanks Rob) The guy who beat me must have been about 65 years old and could limbo better than just about any guy I’ve ever seen.
Photo by Janson Smith
Some dude ran Lundbreck Falls again this year — I did not. Luckily there were no injuries at the falls. Here’s the photo I snapped:
Photo by Jeff Milner
And the video from my iPhone (thanks Andy):
There is a photo of me running the same falls in 2008.
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The Bad Review Revue
Fast Five: “Wow, the only way this film could be more ludicrous is if they actually cast Ludacris in it. Oh wait…” — Widgett Walls, Needcoffee.com
Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family: “Comedy is comedy, and ‘terminal illness’ is ‘terminal illness’ and the two really shouldn’t meet. What you end up with is a movie that’s literally as funny as cancer.” — Jim Slotek, Jam! Movies
Water for Elephants: “…a much larger group of potential ticket-buyers could have been tapped with a different title that I offer here for consideration: Twilight Under the Big Top.” — Sarah Boslaugh, Playback:stl
Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs Evil: “Parents should take their children to ‘Hoodwinked Too! Hood Vs. Evil,’ if only because kids are never too young to learn the important and liberating skill of walking out of a movie and demanding a refund.” — Kyle Smith, New York Post
Insidious: “Looking up the word Insidious in the dictionary is a more fulfilling experience than seeing the movie Insidious.” — Jordan Hoffman, UGO