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What better way to welcome the winter snow than with a viewing of Fargo, that study in tense moments. My first full viewing, as a matter of fact; I'd somehow caught the ending a couple times, which I found depressing. How extreme a situation, a series of situations, that would cause someone to think that they were doing right by hiring thugs! I don't mean to judge, only to contemplate. I enjoyed the characters, their speech, their peculiarities. December, and winter, and the end of 2013. A time for reflection, and in so doing, I feel less than pleased with my efforts. Health-wise, I haven't put much time into the gym or into karate, which shows. But I am off my colitis medication and am fairing well enough. I put time into The Dave and Hwan Show . I worked on a board game. I suppose I went to a couple marches and rallies. And I did do a fair bit of donating to things this year. MJ and I have been going to couples therapy, which I feel is making some difference. And I ha...

It's been a month and how have I been? Not miserable, but not boomingly good either. Winter has cast its shocking gaze, and I find myself little prepared for it. Drained, I find myself. I just got back from visiting my parents, who are well enough. My father had a mild heart attack a couple months ago, and seems to be relatively good now, though he still suffers from high blood pressure. We're all getting old, very old. I feel new aches and pains all the time and find the value in stretching throughout the day. I went to the AGO with the aim of seeing the David Bowie exhibit but the thing had sold out, such is its popularity. I took in a couple of other things, eager to avoid the crowds. A quiet gallery is a blessed thing. Some coffee, some sweets, some escape. Saturday MJ and I picked up groceries from the St. Lawrence Market, some of which made its way into a simple meal. We started in on the third season of The Walking Dead -- such violence, such gore! They really took...

Today I put a couple hours into Ziggurat, the board game my friend and I came up with earlier this year. But mostly I played GTA V and slept, not getting much in the name of chores done. Indeed this entire weekend has revolved around playing video games and procrastinating. I did get to hang out with a couple friends, so that's something. Went to Malabar Saturday, a madhouse of people hunting for costumes. Not for me though, nay, I think I've had quite enough of putting effort into Hallowe'en. I suppose that's a decision made for me by the company I keep, which in turn is shaped by my age. So yeah, GTA V. I bought a used PS3 off of Dave, and played (and finished) The Last Of Us, a survival-horror game. I quite enjoyed it, impressed by the story, graphics, voice acting, atmosphere, maps: One of the best games I've had the pleasure of playing, and certainly it set my console gaming bar quite high. Without a doubt GTA V is up there, with a dauntingly large world to...

Like most holiday weekends, this one crept up on me, unaware was I of its approach. So it was with few plans did I spend the days, though they filled themselves easily enough. MJ and an out-of-town friend stayed at my place. I met up with them Friday night for a meal at Sukho Thai, that esteemed house of noodles and curry. I let our guest pick the dishes, and though they were not my favourites I enjoyed them greatly. Picking away at the last of the plates, MJ and I got into a heated discussion on "bio-medicine" (a term I found problematic), and its ability, or lack thereof, to meet the needs of a rapidly evolving market. After grabbing some stuff from MJ's temporary apartment out in Mimico, we met up with some of her friends for a couple drinks before heading to Unlovable, where my sister was spinning some tunes. We talked of travel, global warming, the Congress shutdown, recreational drug use. Saturday morning found us shaking sleep from our heads as we cycled to the...

Pacific Rim sucked. It blew hard chunks of stinky fetid space cheese. I admit that it was loud and brash and visually a spectacle to behold.. but the characters were boring, the plot didn't make sense and the fights were just plain silly. The good: I enjoyed the rendering of the futuristic shiny robots; they felt like giant machines, with incredible heft and weight behind every stomp. The aliens, the "Kaiju", were pretty cool too, harking to Godzilla-esque monsters. I liked the banter between the two scientists, who, along with the black market dealer, were the only creatures that displayed any life in the film. The bad: I didn't care for the main character. I didn't feel the love story, or much of his sense of loss over his brother. It's fairly safe to say that the characters were about as one-dimensional as a Saturday morning cartoon, which perhaps is what they were going after but that doesn't excuse them -- they geared the movie towards the adults,...

And here is the long awaited Next Entry™. Not the entry I was hoping to write, mind you, but the entry you deserve. I've been meaning to write up on Bayes' Theorem (again), Pacific Rim (an awful hot mess), and maybe something about power plants. But, as is often the case with these things, I just haven't put enough time together, in a strong enough sprint, to get something post-able done. So instead you get this, me summarizing the goings-on of the last couple of months. I had my biennial colonoscopy, and I'm sure you're thrilled to hear that my specialist said everything's looking great in there! So great in fact that he's suggested, and I've agreed, that I cease tak ing my Azathioprine (Imuran) medication, an immunosuppressant that I've been taking for... what, eight straight years? I'll be keeping a close eye on my progress, to be sure. Could I handle a relapse, to return to that spinning abyss? I'd like to think no. I saw Man of St...

Finally getting around to seeing Eagle vs. Shark. Not sure what to do with Facebook any more; it's like my every post is judged and scrutinized, no note unwatched. So much work to present and organize my thoughts in a clear and concise light. Often I find myself nearly ready to post a link with a comment before I take it down, unready or unwilling to exhibit, censoring myself in fear of echoing what's already out there. I've tried to extend myself of late, to be more open with my thoughts, but I seem to retreating, back to my hermit ways. Stop-motion has an endearing quality, does it not? Whimsical to think of time as staccato moments, our minds filling in the frames between. Germaine is a good choice for a nerd, but this actress is just too attractive to be believed as his mousey admirer. Or it just me, who finds beauty in any woman on the screen? No, the others do not compare, simply do not compare. "She's a lesbian, she went to a lesbian party." H...

Why do I deny myself sleep? It's a funny thing, that I should act so. When that time in the night approaches, my procrastination increases. A routine, what I need is a routine! Not tonight, perhaps, but some time soon I'll find one. Seems like I am always sleeping too little or too much; never am I feeling rested and ready in the morning. True, my addiction to caffeine plays some part but there are good and bad days, regardless of my access to coffee. Movies! I've seen a few: I got around to seeing Drive  and immediately loved it. Quiet hero gets involved with a young mother, is forced into a difficult situation, chooses to do what it takes to save her. Composure and blood is lost. Great soundtrack . Oblivion , while visually beautiful, was full of dumb ideas. The premise and reveal didn't make sense, horrific and profound as they may have been. It was just too too much. The film would be much improved if they cut out the voice-over, though even then there's th...

I'm beginning to believe that I may, in my old age, actually welcome death, to make room for the next generation; too stuck in my ways, my mind replaying golden memories, unable to accept the changes brought before me. I mean, that's a while from now I hope but I can sense its faint approach. Even now, as in years of late, I am haunted by the ills and trespasses of my younger self; it is an ever-growing mountain, diminished only through the dimness of forgetting. I shall fall to the wind of a thousand inward sighs. But ha, no, I am not nearly so melancholy for most of my day. I'll play a little catch-up, while I wait for my phone to charge. Several nights back MJ and I enjoyed Word Wars , a documentary about Scrabble players. The documentary wasn't particularly compelling, but the characters are fascinating enough, in their fringe-of-society way, to have kept our interest up. We saw a much crappier documentary a couple weeks before, My Brilliant Brain: Make Me A Geniu...

Oh hello. No, I didn't forget about you. At least, there were periods when I had you in mind; it's just that, whenever I found myself sitting at the computer, I was distracted by other things... Work: It is what it is. Coming on eight years, and I float along, letting the waves pull me in and push me out. The company has recently released a product for the Windows 8 platform, that poor, deformed monster. We'll see how it works out, as it's but a couple weeks old. M.J.: Things are going well, really well. Went swing dancing a couple times. More than that, we'll see. Board Games: I went to Board Game Jam this past weekend, that was fun.  Jenning  and I came up with a relatively simple yet engaging tile-placing game. Laughably simple, it's a wonder it hasn't been invented yet. We're hoping to do something with it in the coming months. Oh, we playtested Automa Arena a bit too, but it's clear that there are lots of balancing issues already -- we we...

While apparently it's not everyone cup of tea, I have to say that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey absolutely blew me away. There was not one moment during those 169 minutes that I was not delighted, awed, or dazzled. Indeed, the richness of detail flowed in waves over me, each frame etched ever so sharply. It was an experience I do not recall having had elsewhere; shades of it, perhaps, when I saw my first IMAX film, or my first HD viewing. But this was a muchness of a muchness. To pass this up is folly, to deny is to be left behind in the murk of 24fps. The future is here, now, for the seeing! Oh, and the film itself was great! Dwarves and orcs and giants and trolls and racing rabbits and all manner of creatures from Middle Earth, great and mostly not so great. Plenty of action to take in, and at 48 frames per second, you can take it in to its fullest; gone are the days of blurry fights. See the exact thrust of the sword, the precise swing of an axe, the glory of a brandished ...