hwan.com

Huh, I saw another person reading one of the Belgariad books today, this time on the 504 streetcar. Seeing it really brought to mind how I loved that series, way way back when. Right now I'm actually reading The Fellowship of The Ring again, though I can't recall when I previously read it. No wait, I know exactly when it was -- when I was brushing up for the Peter Jackson movies ! Oh me. I've been fiddling a bit with the Luxury hwan.com theme. Unfortunately it makes this page look ugly if you don't have ClearType (or the equivalent) running on your machine. If it's too awful please let me know and I'll change it back or something. I did a whole slew of sit-ups on my carpet and now I have a blister on my tailbone. Seriously, what is up with that??

I rather enjoyed that Oscars. Hugh Jackman, kudos to you, sir. Loved the intro song and dance routine. Kudos to Steve Martin and Tiny Fey, Ben Stiller. The reality television reviews before each actor award, hmmm, not sure about those. I liked it when the person giving the speech added their own personal touch to what sounded otherwise like a very robotic speech. OH big kudos to that little bit James Franco and Seth Rogen did, ha, that made me laugh. Also: domo arigato, mr roboto. So Slumdog Millionaire was the big winner, eh? I guessed as much after that musical number they did but for a while I thought it was going to be a race between Milk and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I recently saw Slumdog Millionaire (as well as The Wrestler and Kung Fu Panda), and well... I would be hesitant to call it the Best Picture. It was entertaining, certainly, but it had a few things that didn't sit well me. Mostly I didn't think Dev Patel was very good -- wooden, bland, simple. Sor...

Howdy. Winter still here, but a crack is there, letting light through. After that Twestival shindig, I kind of got pulled into that meta-status world of Twitter , Blip.fm , and Tumblr . Contrasting Twitter and Facebook is an interesting exercise. I mean, Twitter is more about listening in on other people's thoughts while Facebook is this claustrophobic high school with kids showing off their latest works to each other, gossipy, glossy. To the internet, everyone! Let's all soak up that brilliant glow, those heavenly emissions. See what I see and despair! Or just take note of this mundane detail I've decided to fill the dead air with, it's just me wanting to get some attention from anyone Facebook decides should hear. Toronto! Snap out of it! Facebook isn't free -- you're spending your life reading notifications, one page refresh at a time. I didn't mean for this to turn into a rant but I guess it kind of did. Me, a dinosaur of the blog/webjo age, ...

Last night I went to TwestivalTO held at Circa, a club where the old SegaCity used to be. I found out about the event mostly through boredom i.e. I was restless and used Facebook to find out what was going on in Toronto. I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I envisioned a bunch of young male nerds with smartphones drinking domestic beers, crowding around the few women and/or texting/twittering constantly.  My assumption proved quite lacking regarding the male/female ratio but the incessant smartphone use was spot on. I also didn't expect to meet the Raptor ladies or to get on CityTV (their news site, anyway -- I'm not sure if the snippet was actually broadcast). Er, don't get too excited about that video link, as I don't actually say anything. Yes, immortalized holding my iPhone and a Jamesons. All in all a memorable night, considering my reservations about attending a Facebook event. I do still have concerns over how much good for the charity (if indeed "c...

Oh hey, ok, someone finally explained the "base metaphor" for dating in convenient image form: Base System . I remember mentioning my confusion about the system (but am unable to find the entry now), with only a homerun making any real sense. Seems I'm not the only one . Oh American sports and your zany wordplay ! Weather's warmed up somewhat eh? I took advantage of the fair air to work off a hangover Saturday afternoon by taking a run through High Park. Dear it was tough, arduous work! So very out of shape and now so very sore, mostly on my thighs. Haven't gotten the bicycle out, maybe will do later this week. Oh hey I watch The Transporter for the first time yesterday. Was it yesterday? Yes. And while I enjoyed I also laughed at how incredibly silly it was. It just plain does not make any sense, none at all. Picked up some new music, Sigur Ros and MGMT. Well, new to me anyways.

Wednesday night I saw Waltz with Bashir at the Carleton with some friends. I really liked the music and sound, which the animation made stand out -- every footstep and breath and bullet all the more audible. The beach memory music in particular I found haunting. Yeah, the first half or so of the movie I felt was excellent, when the memories are still just fragments, broken pieces that don't line up. It's when they start forming a coherent picture does the movie begin to turn into this .. well, lame, boring documentary. I had hoped that the final statement would be more profound or beautiful but alas, I did not find it so. Still, overall I quite enjoyed it. I've also been playing a bit of Mount and Blade, this neat independent game, a sandboxed action RPG. The bit that brings me back to it is the mounted combat -- there's something very satisfying about riding circles around bandits and shooting arrows at them. I just.. I can't quite explain what it is. F...

First things first, I got my new iPhone. I had lost my old one the night of my birthday , it having likely fallen out of my pocket into a taxi from the same pants I lost my trusty SCP-4000 . Comfortable those pants but negligent in their holding of valuables! And I say "old", but I only had that iPhone for about 3 months, sigh. So, it turns out that to replace a 16 GB iPhone costs $650 CDN I kid you not. Once again I had to turn to Rogers customer service to rant about the price thrust upon me. After an anxious wait they offered me a refurbished one for $250 which I greedily took. It has since arrived and iTunes, surprisingly to me, restored all my files and setting properly and conveniently so that I am back to where I was, minus $250 but without the scratches and the wonky Home button my old iPhone had. Today I applied that Invisible Shield I had ordered on-line, a small project reminiscent of my days working with vinyl graphics. Second things second, my apartment ...

Birthday was a quiet night out with a friend, playing pool and such. So much so that I seem to have misplaced my iPhone, yes precious. I briefly flirted with the idea of not getting a replacement but it seems nobody wants me to go without it. I miss the iPod functionality most and have turned to imeem.com for my temporary music fix. Oh, but back to my birthday. Yes very quiet and I have no recollection of the latter parts of the evening. Exactly. Saturday I spent primarily in bed haunted by odd, unexpected dreams. In the late afternoon I was able to finally drag myself from my hangover grave to frantically clean my apartment before my family came over for dinner. My mom brought her usual serving of far more food than necessary, though all completely appreciated. Presents, yes. Nothing extravagant, some books, a plant, bowls, homemade cookies. Funny, I was so stressed trying to get my apartment in shape and it seemed to all work out and I guess I stressed for naught. Sund...

For no real reason other than curiosity I installed Prince of Persia first. The graphics are as tasty as the screenshots. I love the animated oil painting design, and the colors are rich and summer-y, the scenery divine. The gameplay is somewhat mixed -- I'm not a huge fan of platformers, so all the jumping and running and climbing didn't do much for me. At first the instant respawning was quite nice, then the animation became annoying (because I died so frequently) and then it became an acceptable punishment as I got better, the animations less obtrusive. And, even though visually you can see quite far, it felt like a very small, tiny world since you could only stand in a few places here and there. The fights, again, beautiful to watch, but somewhat tiresome in practice. They were satisfying to win, sure, but they felt more like a timing puzzle than a battle. I did like the banter between the Prince and Elika, at times comedic, other times serious, and later on playful and ...

Yes, in the last minute throes of uncertainty, I went to Kitchener to hang out with Growl and company for New Year's Eve, thanks to an unsolicited last minute offer. The night was... largely, mostly, almost entirely uneventful. Drinks (SoCos) and shots (Jager bombs) were had. Photos were taken. Names were forgotten. Coats, mittens and scarves were lost. Words were slurred. Asses were slapped. Friends were reunited. The day following the only nearby place to eat was Tim Horton's, Waterloo otherwise a ghost town. Growl and I then played some eight hours of Mirror's Edge, that new first-person parkour platformer. I have to say, it looks downright gorgeous -- such clean, simple designs and graphics, without any of that murkiness that seems so popular today. The game can be difficult at times but when you start getting the hang of wall-jumps and wall-running, well, it's an exhilarating, rewarding experience. As a tumbling/running/clambering-over-things game, it...

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 ...