brian's blog

The movers showed up early in the afternoon and quickly split up, one packing my bedroom, the other the living room. They were about my age, which could have made things awkward ("This punk headed out west for a job thinks he's better than us!"), but turned out fine in the end; we talked about video games & movies, and they remarked positively on each item of Simpsons merchandise in my possession (there are many).

Click the image for a few post-pack photos. All in all, 54 boxes of my junk were packed and shipped out, and I've left behind a cavernous and empty apartment for Markus to occupy. (I don't think he minds, especially since he gets a swinging bachelor pad all to himself for three months.)

My favorite box is the one labelled "foam" -- it's a protective box wrapped around the protective foam for my dartboard.

Busy weekend. Had a great farewell / drink-all-the-alcohol party on Friday, which I'll post photos of later.

Today I've been crazy busy separating my stuff from Markus' (see photo), packing my suitcases (as I won't have access to the bulk of my stuff for a month while it's in storage), and filling out legal documents. I'm not allowed to pack any of my own stuff or else it can't be insured, which means that my existing boxes will need to be emptied out and repacked.

(I'm also thinking of "accidentally" forgetting to mention that the couch isn't mine.)

Tomorrow: The movers!

Almost 6 years after marching into town and mere days before I leave, I finally stumble across the best -- and, incidentally, most student friendly -- haircutters in town, Absolute Hair & Skin. Meters away from Generation X, they take my coat when I enter and offer me tea or coffee or Fruity Drink Option X. While my hair is being cut (and quite expertly, which is ultimately what counts), an esthetician pulls up a stool and gives me a hand massage. After the haircut, a deep scalp massage. Next, a hair wash using far too many fragrant hair chemicals to count (and note that it happens after the haircut here, rinsing away the hair trimmings). Last, the styling. Throughout, they're friendly, professional, and conversational.

It's a bit pricey (~$25 for guys), but their website has a coupon for $10 off your first visit, making it comparable to First Choice. First Choice, people. And they were playing a Radiohead CD when I entered. That just about did it right there.

Maybe it's just me, though. Maybe you need to be metrosexual to appreciate it. 'Cause that's me, right. Metrosexual. Right?

Amazon's today launched a pretty slick addition to location-based searches within their A9 search engine. They've driven cars around 10 U.S. cities snapping up over 20 million digital photos so that when you search for, say, a local restaurant, you can not only view its storefront, but also virtually "walk" up and down the street.

Here's a page introducing the technology, and a search I performed myself for Wild Ginger in Seattle.

As cool as this is, a few big gripes:

• It's difficult to be sure what direction the camera is facing; there should be an indicator on the MapQuest map. I think this is the sort of make-or-break feature that will severely limit the engine's usefulness if it's not there.
• Similarly, when you "walk right" and "walk left" on the street, an indicator on the MapQuest map should show you in which direction you're moving
• A9's interface is powerful, but terrible. It takes too long to learn.

I was over at my mom's today trying to organize my boxes and boxes of old possessions / memories to decide which ones I want to take and which to leave behind, as well as to grab anything else I want to haul to Seattle (chairs, clothes, etc.) Some pretty old memories in those boxes; some are tough to see again. It's starting to hit me how my move is only a week away, and how it's such a large step in my life. Going off to university wasn't even this big.

Going through those boxes makes me want to fully process, come to grips with, and find a resolution & closure on every event and relationship that I've had over the past ten years. But I don't think anything's ever that clean cut.

Wait. I'm not normally this sappy. Sorry. It ends here. What is this, LiveJournal?

Things are pretty well fully planned out for me over the next week:

• Tomorrow, head back over to my mom's for more sorting / reminiscing, then dinner with Denise
• Friday, hang out with Mike in the afternoon, then a farewell party (apparently!) at my place with everyone who can make it. I hear I'm going to get help with my unshippable-alcohol problem.
• Saturday, hangover recovery, and dinner with my uncle & family
• Sunday, pre-move packing
• Monday, the movers come to pack and haul my stuff away
• Tuesday, last minute stuff
• Wednesday morning, I'm out

I miss my SCI 206 class from last term. SCI 206 is the "Physics of How Things Work," or, usually more accurately, "Blow Up Stuff to See How It Works." Case in point: Click on the image to watch a short movie (500k) I recorded in class.

Also: Check out the last six pictures in my Around Waterloo album for photos of the liquid nitrogen ice cream we ate, and my own playing experiments with liquid nitrogen + a flower.

Forget fancy cars or flashy electronics. If you ever need a consumer product for self-validation, Salon Selectives is for you.

From MSNBC, Napster eyes movie, game downloads:

Chris Gorog, Napster chairman and chief executive, said the US-listed group could apply its online music model to films, TV programming and other video content allowing users to sample and access content over the web.

This is exciting. If the MPAA and other organizations want to reduce the amount of content pirated via BitTorrent, an essential step is to allow a dead-simple legal alternative for distribution online.

Here's my feature wishlist:

• Allow me to watch once anytime, an unlimited number of times within a 48 hour period, or "own" a permanent copy
• Enable transfer to a limited number of other computers / devices (laptop, portable player, set top box, etc)
• Burnable to DVD - unless the price is high, it may be unrealistic to expect the studios to allow this feature since it would likely eat into highly profitable DVD sales
• Enable download of whole seasons of TV shows
• Less emphasis on streamed content - I have yet to see streamed video content perform reliably. I'd rather take the time to download.
• Fast downloads - perhaps via Akamai or even, ironically, some sort of BitTorrent scheme
• A choice of compression levels, and...
• A Mac version, of course

From AppleMatters, Dissecting the iPod Shuffle:

The Lithium-based rechargeable battery is encased in silver foil and adhered to the greenboard. Apple notes that the battery (like all Lithium-based rechargeable batteries) degrades over time and will eventually require replacing (see www.apple.com/batteries).

Sounds like the battery won't be easy to replace, if it's even possible. But since the player itself is practically disposable at $99, I doubt people will have the kind of complaints they had about the iPod's battery.

We stopped by a Cora's in Kingston the weekend before last for breakfast. Last time we tried Cora's, it didn't live up to the Eggspectation standard that had spoiled us in Ottawa, but we wanted to give it another shot. I ordered a plate of fruit and cheese. (Click on the image for a larger version.)

But it was a monster. I didn't eat it. It ate me.

It was great.

From my future manager (a guy I've worked with before) in response to an email I sent confirming my start date:

Thanks for the update, we can't wait to put your ass to work!

I have to do work? Crap.

Family Guy returns to TV on Sunday, May 1st, at 9:00pm. It's 'bout time.

Given Fox's (justified) fear of the FCC, though, I don't have much hope that it'll be "the same as before." Much of Family Guy's humor stemmed from not pulling its punches.

All right. Done. Years after I first meant to, and 10 days before I move away from friends and family, I finally have a personal blog set up that I too can someday ignore and neglect (well, again, anyway). But until that happens, I'll use this as a way to keep bored friends with absolutely nothing better to do up to date on what's happening with me, especially after the move.

At first I was reluctant to join the teeming blog masses to offer something with absolutely no supplementary value to what's already out there, but I've forced that line of thinking into submission because:

1. I want an outlet for writing (however juvenile and riddled with logical fallacies it may be)
2. It's not like this will be widely seen, anyway, and
3. I must have an exhibitionist streak

That said, I need to find an appropriate disclaimer once I start work -- I know my new employer has a pretty liberal policy regarding blogs, stupid lapses of common sense notwithstanding, but I'd still like to blog about work-related subjects at some point. My traffic here might be miniscule, but I'm certainly not anonymous. Hopefully I can find the "line in the sand" without imposing too much self-censorship on non-work related posts.

(Image from T-shirtHumor.com)

Sweet. Registered the domain, got everything transfered over, and I'm ready to come up with a design and get this puppy started.

Yay. Graduated. Now I have some free time, and trust me, I am not hesitating to taunt six-course-wonder-Markus with it.

My goal is to get this blog set up before heading out to Seattle around Feb 1st.

I've registered the mind-bogglingly original URL brianblog.com for it. This address won't last too much longer (and I'll probably nuke these posts when I get things going).