hwan.com

Holy cow you mean to say that I haven't updated hwan.com in 11 days? Yikes. That is.. well, I am sorry. Not that sorry, but surprised certainly. Actually, I'm here to write about windows, er, Windows. In particular, reordering of items in the Start menu. For the longest time I would, when tidying up my Start programs, press really hard on the mouse button, sometimes getting the item to drag and sometimes not, not really knowing why it would or wouldn't work. Irrational I know, but it just felt that doing so would help. I finally figured it out just now -- if you drag a folder, you have to wait for Windows to expand it. Otherwise, the expand animation unsets the click and doesn't recognize that you are attempting a drag action. THIS IS STUPID!!! Oh WOW that bugs me ever so much. How did this possibly get past user testing? How is it that this has been this way since.. since dragging of expandable Start Menu items was allowed? Windows Explorer certainly doesn't act ...

" Every time I have to remove my shoes at an airport it would be nice if there were a picture of Bush nearby to throw them at. " -- twoleftfeet Been watching and playing a lot of StarCraft lately. Yes you heard right. Watching videos on GOM TV has really opened up my mind to the complexities and intricate nature of the game. Well, of course it helps that the commentary is in English and reasonably entertaining in of itself. At work too the spirit of RTS is alive and well, with many people working to improve their skills. Certainly passions also run high, and can bring out the worst in us. Oh, how the tempers do flare! What is it about creating an army and watching it die that frustrates one so? And why do we keep playing when it happens? Such a struggle! I find the Canada Revenue Agency Charity site helpful in choosing where to send my donations. I'm thinking that I can judge them by how much of their revenue was spent on advertising. For example, the Canadian Wild...

Chemicals! They surround us and penetrate us. They bind the galaxy together. And once in a while I find out that it's the ones in my toothpaste that have been responsible for that strange film I sometimes find in my mouth. At least, I'm fairly certain that sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) is responsible for that. The wiki article also talks about it being responsible for increasing the frequency of canker sores , which as you know I love to hate. I've also noticed that my shampoo and dishwash soap contain SLS/SLES. Surrounds us indeed. The other chemical? His popular consumer form is Tylenol and the danger he poses is to the liver. More to the point, apparently alcohol and Acetaminophen work together as a double whammy. News to me, who has been prescribing tylenol and water after a night of heavy drinking. Yeah, oh my poor, poor liver. But no more! No, I've turned from this potentially harmful duo. Well, the Tylenol half anyway. Finally on my list of things to ment...

'ello 'ello! Yup, December. Hey, I finished reading The Road, the Cormac McCarthy book. Pretty good! I found it reminded me of I Am Legend for that tension from having a survivalist dialog. It's kind of a far reaching comparison I suppose. Certainly I can compare it with Fallout 3 , a very obvious contrast there. I find myself quite enjoying McCarthy's books, and will likely seek out his other work. I must say that I am excited to see how it will translate to the big screen, and should curb my enthusiasm as it is not Coen-directed. Started watching Summer Heights High , an Australian mockumentary centered around three characters in a high school. The twist is that all three people are played by Chris Lilley and it is down right eerie how good he is at it. Surreal. Oh, I suppose one could compare it to The Office (the UK one) since it also has that authentic documentary feel. You can find some clips on YouTube to get a taste of it. I've been trying to go to b...

Silly times, my friends. Drinking, drinking, drunk. Tonight more of the like for the office Christmas party, this year at Tappo Restaurant out in the Distillery district. Yesterday was the Charlotte room, Wednesday was Bar Wellington. Oh my sides! In the latter parts of the evening I was trying to convince my friend to drink some water, him being in the state he was, by applying various slogans to make water more appealing. "Water, It's In You To Give", "Water, Nature's Fruit-juice", "Water, The Sweat of the Earth". Actually, the bartender came up with the brilliant "Water, Turn It On" and the memorable "Water, Put It In Your Mouth". Indeed. I floated in out and out consciousness, trying to sleep but my mind all a-buzz. I thought about the upcoming StarCraft 2 and how, if at all, they plan to improve the game. I mean, aside from the graphics. A huge gripe of mine with the original (bless it's well-balanced hear...

SCATTERGORIES... it's harder than it looks! Hit Forward, erase my answers, enter yours, send it on to 10 people including the one that sent this to you. Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following. They have to be real places, names, things.. nothing made up! Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question. WHAT IS YOUR NAME: Hwan BOY NAME: Hortense? Harry 4 LETTER WORD: hide GIRL NAME: Hilary OCCUPATION: Horse-whisperer. Hairdresser? Hoser? Haberdasher! A COLOUR: Hazel (this one took me 5 minutes) SOMETHING YOU WEAR: Hat. headpiece. BEVERAGE: Heineken? FOOD: Hamburger SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM: Handle? A PLACE: Himalayas (there be my Sherpa playas). REASON FOR BEING LATE: Hissyfit. SOMETHING YOU SHOUT: HOT DAMN. Or How the heck? Or simply Hell.

Blast this weather! How is it that it always manages to ruin my complexion, and thus my mood, and hence my mind? Cannot think, cannot feel. Aching, itching. Mornings are still a struggle, unrested, unready. This morning was more tedious than usual as there was some kind of streetcar stoppage at the corner of Queen and Roncesvalles. Eventually a bus came by to pick us up, but it unfortunately struck (or nearly struck) an old woman crossing the street at Dufferin and King. Yes it was nutty, but I think she was more shaken up than physically injured if indeed there was contact as I didn't witness it directly. Not really watching much these days. I did see an old French film on the weekend, The Wages of Fear (1953) a black and white thriller. It takes a while to get going but once it does WHOO it's a wild ride. I saw the Criterion Collection version and wasn't happy with the translation used -- there were times when even I, with my faltering French, could tell tha...

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present Exhibit A: QWOP . Proof that Hwan does not need a fancy schmancy computer in order to be amused and entertained for hours on end. No, he only needs a game with simple mechanics and a steep learning curve. HDR , fillrates? Pfeh, a Jedi craves not these things! Seriously though, that QWOP game is hella fun. I guess it's the combination of the hilarious animation and the thrill of actually getting the dude to run, once you figure out the control scheme. Getting the beginning movements correct is crucial, as this initial forward momentum is what seeds the rest. Then you need to get into a rhythm, adjusting it for missteps and other randomness, incrementally increasing the size of your strides to match your speed. After a while you start to naturally press the right keys, without even thinking about which finger is pressing what key when. Oh, it's definitely tough in the beginning oh my yes. Montreal is where I went this past w...

Slight flu/cold right now. Not using that as an excuse for anything, but just letting you know that I'm not feeling 100%... so perhaps my writing is not 100%. Not that that's ever stopped me before. Oh yeah, feeling the heat of sickness now urgkkkk. Been playing more Left 4 Dead , having now gone through all four missions (or movies). I can see the good (graphics, zombie-animatronics) and bad things (same maps, few items and weapons) about the game, but it will be the multiplayer experience that makes or breaks it as a lasting thing. So far, I think the multiplayer can be very much likened to Counter-strike in that the players play on one of two teams whose aim is to kill the other. The twist is that the mission of the protagonists (the humans) is to reach the other side of the map alive. Oh, and that the antagonists (the infected) respawn. Fallout 3 is still on my games radar. I came across this excellent review of it: Fallout 3 review [nma-fallout.com] which, fo...

With the new computer I've also done a bit of re-arranging of my apartment, getting things done that I've been putting off for months. Funny, I wrote that sentence and can't for the life of me remember where I was going with it. Sure, sometimes there are things I recall that I wish I wouldn't. I suppose any thoughts on controlling these are futile. Has anything happened? No. My fridge was fixed, but not until most of the food inside transformed into non-food material. I bought the pre-release of Left 4 Dead which I have to say looks fantastic and plays even more so. I tend to rave in a meaningless manner about games I really think are neat, but believe you me, Left 4 Dead is impressive. My only grief is that there's not much to it -- run, shoot, survive. But it's so very well done, with shockingly good zombie animation. Oh man, when a horde of those suckers come running at you, it's the thrill of seeing one's first fast zombie all over again...

I had actually planned to spend a month or two watching (or trying to watch) a movie a day, but of course like most things I think might be fun to try, it never happened. Still, I did make some time on the weekend to watch The Deer Hunter. I liked it. I read that Christopher Walken went on a diet of rice, bananas and water to get as pale as he did. I did find the first act somewhat long to sit through, but then I can be impatient with weddings if I can't take part in the festivities. I suppose you could call The Deer Hunter a war movie, but in three acts it shows the before, the during, and the after, and manages to transform the viewer as even we witness the characters transform, hollowed out by the trial of war. I found myself worrying about life and death all over again, that old bonnet of going away, the long goodbye to nowhere and nothing and life is but a temporary illusion and when I go it is gone. Yes, I have been playing some more Fallout 3, but haven't these p...