techno.blog("Dion")

My son has always loved Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb by Al Perkins.

He also loves Monk-E-Mail (a great advertising platform for CareerBuilder IMO), and ever since my Dad sent him one, he associates a computer with monkeys. I am sure people think that he is nuts when he runs up to them at a coffee shop shouting “monkeys! monkeys!” and pointing at their laptop.

I decided to put things together, and made his favourite monkeys, read his favourite book:

I used to read a lot as a kid. I can remember going through Beano’s, books, and ZX Spectrum games.

The first series that I loved was Malory Towers, a book about a children’s boarding school. For some reason I closely related to the main character, Darrell Rivers, who read to me like Dion Almaer. ASIDE: I related to Fred Savage and The Wonder Years too… probably to do with the hair, and due to the fact that Winnie seemed all too fresh.

I remember finishing the last book in the six book series. I cried. It was over. We all know that the journey is the fun part (happiness isn’t a destination, it is a journey and all that jazz). When you get to the end of a fun journey things can fall a little flat. Finishing this book was a mini-version of finishing up at a school and knowing that you will never go back. It brings an emptiness to it.

Why am I blabbing about this? I just finished the Harry Potter series. I won’t put any spoilers in here, as the reason that I wanted to read it in short order was due to NOT coming across any spoilers. I tend to read a few feeds and such, so I thought that I was bound to come across something.

I lift my glass to JK. I can only imagine the possible feelings she must have gone through as she wrote the last page. What a journey she has gone through. How her life has changed from when she wrote the first page of the book, to the last.

We do live in a magical world. It is in front of us, and if you don’t see it, you are a muggle.

Part one of the summer Harry Potter mania is over. The movie was decent enough. It was solid. It did the job.

It wasn’t special though and you felt like you were speeding through things the entire time. Almost everything was covered, but all in a very light way.

It was also very dark. My nephews went to see this, and I don’t know if I would want them to :) I know that the books get darker and darker, but the movies are even more-so. In the book there is time for some fun here and there, but the speed y movie bypasses all of that and just leaves the mainline darkness. Ebert was right when he said there was never a gleam in Harry’s eye. No fun quidditch here.

I was amazed at how they cast Laura Bush as Dolores. The “I look nice but deep down I am medievally harsh” character that will do anything for the president^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hminister of magic.

I love how the books mimic the times.

Now we can get to what people are really going to get into. The final book. Noone cares about the Sopranos ending in comparison!

Lessons from a true pro:

• People should know some of the words, but not all of them (so they listen to you)
• There has to be some slow parts and some fast parts
• There has to be a speaking part
• There has to be some instrumental time so you can talk to the crowd.

I got to watch the wisdom of crowds in action this weekend.

A good friend is getting married this summer, and had the fun idea to get friends together for a wine testing. The aim was to choose the wine for the wedding.

By having the party, people could bring their favourites, a good time could be had, and a solid wine would be served at the wedding itself.

Before the tasting began, everyone had a score sheet, and were asked to rate the wine (1 - 5) and give thoughts on it (spry, smokey, acidic, to name a few that came up).

Surprise, surprise. As the night went on, people ranked them better. My hypothesis throughout was that we may be able to weed out the truly poor wines, but that this is pretty random. If you tasted a wine that had a bad aftertaste, it would affect the next wine (people weren’t even attempting to cleanse the palette).

The a-ha moment was when the same wine was sneaked in twice (all of the wines were hidden, and numbers associated with them).

People gave the same win VERY different scores, and wrote very different thoughts about them.

Well, at least we met the “have a good time” aim of the night.

Ah, Ricky.

With the cricket world cup upon us in the Caribbean the usual classic pub-like song has come up.

It is playing on their myspace page and you can tell their genius from the lyrics.

Don’t make us pray for rain

Watch out for Monty he’s gonna make the ball bounce, Nixon’s behind you and he’s ready to pounce

Kevin Peterson is as English as the rest of us, the Aussies wont get him out for a duck billed platypus.

Michael Vaughn Is our skipper Plunkett bowls a dipper won’t try the local herbs but might smoke a kipper

The wicket might be sticky, bowling will be tricky, .

If you wanna watch the match gonna have to throw a sickie

The ground might be slippy

The Aussies might get lippy

They’re gonna need some help, they should send for Skippy

So come on now lads, time to pull on your pads

don’t’ put us through a months worth of pain

Aint won it before time to even the score

Don’t make us pray for rain

Remember hit the ball run and then we will all have tea!

Freddie flint offs a hero, he says it’s no biggie

But he can bowl and bat while rolling a ciggie

Anything’s possible if you follow your dream

Even Scotland have got a cricket team

The ball will be spinning, throughout the innings, And up in the stand Fletcher will be grinning

No heat rashes No rash dashes come on everybody let’s forget about the ashes.

You score there’s no kissing can’t argue with dismissing In the commentary box Geoffrey boycotts reminiscing

So come on now lads, time to pull on your pads

don’t’ put us through a months worth of pain

Aint won it before time to even the score

Don’t make us pray for rain

We don’t need, the rain, don’t need, the rain, don’t need, the rain, don’t need, the rain

I bet most of you have gone through the experiencing of losing all, or part, of a document that you have spent a lot of time on. Having to rewrite this is a painful feeling, much worse than having to write new content (even though in theory it is easier as you already know what to write).

This week someone broke into our car and nabbed our TomTom. It was hidden in a glove compartment, in a gated condo area. They had been watching, and they broke the rear window in broad daylight to get their prize. I hope they feel proud.

Having to purchase another system is a pain. You plot down your credit card and back comes….. what you already just had!

The whole gated community thing irritates me too. It is trivial to get in, and one door is always just open. Get rid of the gates and put in some video recorders.

Welcome to California.

I have been feeling like Keanu in Speed recently.

When I have been driving, I have had to keep above 30 miles an hour. A bomb wasn’t going to off if I dipped below of course, but my son may wake up.

~30 miles an hour seems to be the magic speed that knocks my son out if he is tired.

Of course, you have to disconnect from the speed issue to drive safely with Baby on Board, but I still couldn’t help feeling like I was driving a bus.

I now have an urge to learn kung fu.

It is a little comical that the English cricket team could win in the one day tournamant in Australia.

Only “we” could lose ~15 games, and then somehow win a couple in a row to end up victorious.