Demand Boondock Saints 2!

I'm not impressed that the Boondock Saints 2 is not coming to Thunder Bay. But I stumbled on Sean Patrick Flanery's Official site, which has a link where you can Demand that Boondock Saints 2 comes to your city. I posted it on Facebook, and I'm posting it here. If you loved the first one, Demand Boondock Saints 2 comes to Thunder Bay. And if you haven't seen the first movie, go watch it, and then Demand the 2nd one comes here!

You can click on the Demand It! button at the end of this post. It will take you to the site.

View all Thunder Bay events on Eventful

Phone Pics!

Today I decided to post a couple of pics to Flickr that I took using my cell phone. These are pics I took when I didn't have my camera handy. They're all pretty random but they make me laugh!

Unfortunately, the camera in my cell phone isn't that great, so the quality of these images isn't very good when they are larger. I also attempted to fix up the image of Sasha - it looked really bad on the computer screen.

An Overdue Update

School has kept me extremely busy, so I've been neglecting things like my blogs. Well, my personal blogs for fun. I had to start a blog for a class, so that one has gotten all of my attention lately (you can check it out here if you're interested).

Besides school, I got a new laptop and Halo ODST in September. My old laptop has given me tons of problems over the years, like the battery dying (and if I hadn't removed it, the battery would have eventually killed the laptop). The newest problem was that a purple vertical line appeared down the left side of the screen. If you want to see what I'm talking about, check out this page. Apparently this was a common problem with the HP ZD8000 laptop. I decided that this was the last straw, so I went out and bought a new laptop. The new one is an Acer. It's a million times quieter and cooler than the ZD8000, and also a lot faster. I'm still getting used to the keyboard (it's not as sensitive as the ZD8000's was when it worked properly), but so far I'm liking it.

Halo ODST is another thing I'm liking. I preordered it in the summer, and was counting down the days until it was released. Luckily it didn't disappoint. I haven't been able to play as much as I'd like (school is keeping me very busy) but I'm enjoying it. The campaign is a bit off - it's not as bad as Halo 2, but not as good as Halo 1 and 3. But once you play through it, you unlock the entire New Mombasa Streets, which is a lot of fun to wander around in. And the multiplayer is fun too. You battle with up to three friends against waves of enemies, instead of gainst other players. It's really tough, but great fun.

I also went to see Streetlight Manifesto in Toronto back in September. They were amazing! You can check out the pics on flickr!

The one thing I'm sad about is my lack of time to write. I wrote a quick poem on Apocalypse Madness for last month's quote, but missed writing for the September quote. I got to post this month's quote, and I'm really hoping I'll have time to write a couple of stories for it. Hopefully I'll be able to sneak some writing time in during the end of next week when I should have a bit of time.

School's Back in Session!

After a fantastic summer (fantastic as in fun, but not so great with the weather), I find myself back in school. But this year is different: this year I am a grad student! I'm really looking forward to the challenges that this year will provide. School started last week, and I'm already quite busy but having a great time. I will provide updates where possible, but a lot of my blogs will most likely fall by the wayside until December (except of course The List, as I will update it with some school books like the six Shakespeare plays I'll be reading!)

Back Home from Yet Another Camping Trip

This week I've gone on two separate camping trips! For the long weekend I went out to my Uncle's Camp, came back for a few days, then went to Sibley for a night.

The Huronian trip was a lot of fun. We were originally going to go on Friday night, but the forecast said rain on Saturday so we waited the night and left Saturday morning. Thankfully the rest of the weekend was nice. The weather wasn't the warmest, but it didn't rain so we got in some fishing (pickerel Sunday night and bass Monday). I went swimming on Sunday (which wasn't the best idea as the lake is STILL freezing!) after my adventures seeing a bear (I was picture taking when I came up to a hill. Suddenly something big and black ran away down the path then turned to see what I'd do. I was afraid that it was a cub so I turned and walked back the way I'd come. Of course I was kicking myself afterwards that I didn't take any pics!)

The Sibley trip was originally supposed to be a one night interior camping trip at Quetico. But the way the weather has been this whole summer, we decided to play it safe by going to Sibley with the bikes and staying in the van (so if it was pouring when we woke up we could easily pack up and go home). The first day was a beautiful, warm and sunny day. We biked to Silver Islet, saw a bunch of deer and had a nice campfire. Perfect! But nothing could prepare me for this morning...the Weather Network had changed the forecast to a 70% chance of rain for today so I had already written it off as a day of rain and going home early. Instead, the sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky for most of the day! So we took another bike ride, this time to the dam, saw some more deer, hung out on the beach reading and fit in a nature trail; another perfect day!

So I'm back home now, after two great days at Sibley. I've uploaded my pics onto Flickr, so please go and check them out!!!

Zombie Hamlet Returns!

After a long time of neglecting it, Zombie Hamlet returns on Delivering Awesome! Zombie Hamlet was originally a group project from one of my classes. But as I mentioned back in December, I had planned on writing my own version of the later acts because I envisioned the story somewhat differently from how it turned out. And so I renamed it Zombie Hamlet and posted the first Act (my contribution to the group project) on Delivering Awesome every Sunday for just over a month. I have been thinking about returning to the world of Zombie Hamlet for some time now (I took the stuff with me camping in the hopes of working on it a few weeks ago) but it took me until four days ago to actually get started on it. And now, after a few days of hard work, most of Act 2 is ready to go! Act 2 Scene 1 will be appearing this Sunday morning at 12:01 am, as per the tradition started when I originally posted Act 1.

Act 2 Scene 2 was written a few months ago and was originally going to be Scene 1. But after some planning, it became Scene 2 (which was what it was originally supposed to be). I then wrote Scene 5 (which was originally going to be Scene 3) and Scene 3 (which was going to be Scene 3), then went back and edited Scene 2 a bit more so that everything went together. Scene 4 followed, which turned out alright. I just finished Scene 1, which ended up the hardest to write. Scenes 6 and 7 are not yet written, but I hope to have them finished by the weekend. Then onto the final Act!

I am really pleased with how these scenes are playing out. I was dissatisfied that the group project neglected some of the characters that were prominent in Act 1, and it has been very entertaining bringing everyone back into the action. I hope that you will have as much fun reading this as I had writing it!

A Whole Wack of New Pics on Flickr

Over the weekend, I went to visit a friend of mine in Fort Frances. I had an awesome weekend, and took a whole bunch of pictures. Many of them are now on Flickr, from the awesome sunset I saw on Saturday night, to the turtles that I'm pretty sure were mating. I got to go fishing on Sunday to a really pretty lake, and then had a wonderful drive home with a stop at Quetico. I saw two moose on the way home, but unfortunately wasn't able to take pictures of either of them.

Then today, I went outside and took some closeups of flowers in my garden and around my yard. This tiger lily photo is my favourite, but I took a whole bunch that are also on my Flickr photostream. I also discovered that my camera can change photos into black and whites or sepia-toned images, and so I have converted a few and posted them on Flickr along with the originals. All in all, there are over 30 new pics on my photostream, so please, check them out!

Cities and Knights!

For my birthday, I bought myself Catan: Cities and Knights. I love the original game, Settlers of Catan, and decided that I would like to try one of the expansions. After some debate, I purchased the Cities and Knights expansion (it was a toss up between Cities and Knights and Traders and Barbarians, but in the end I decided to go with the first one because it seems to be the more popular with people).

So today I finally got to try it out with a couple of friends! I can't believe how different it is from the original game. There's a lot more to it, and it also seems a bit slower paced. But it was still a lot of fun. I'm not entirely sure that we were playing it correctly, (the Pirate Ship never seemed to do anything) but I did enjoy it. I can't wait to play it again (and some more of the original Settlers, as I love that game!!!!)

The Saws Have a New Home!!!!

Since around Christmas, I've been getting gas for my car from the Canadian Tire Gas Bar. This has gotten me about $1.50-$2.00 in Canadian Tire Money every time I fill up. I've been wondering what I was going to do with the money for awhile, especially now that I had almost $20 which is enough to buy something descent.

The saws that I got for Ukrainian Christmas this past year have remained in their package. I had no where to put them, so I didn't bother opening them up until recently. I first needed a tape measure, so I took the one out of the saw kit. And then the other day, my brother came downstairs looking for a hack saw. So I opened up the rest of the kit, thinking I was going to get to saw things. Sadly, I didn't, as my dad pulled his hack saw out and was out the door before mine was out. I now had the saws out of the package with nowhere to put them.

This was when I hit upon the idea of using my Canadian Tire Money to buy a tool kit especially for them! So I went to Canadian Tire earlier today with some friends and bought myself one! It had to be a bit bigger so it could fit the cross cut saw (it nearly didn't! I have to keep the cross cut saw on an angle!) Thanks to the Canadian Tire Money I had, it only cost me $0.17!

Here's the Garden!

Well, I was able to post this a lot sooner than I anticipated! There wasn't very good lighting, and it was a bit cold, so I only took a few shots. This is the entire garden. I managed to get a nice closeup of a pansy that is up on Flickr. More pictures will be forthcoming in the months ahead!

Garden Time!!!!

Yesterday and today, I went on a plant-shopping spree. I bought a few perennials (a primrose, a new red lily, a Chinese lantern and about two others), as well as my usual favourite annuals (pansies, petunias, two fuchsias and a few impatiens). So when I got home from the garden centre, I planted my garden! This year, I was able to clear out the top part of the garden (the part that my dad was originally taking care of), so I've been extremely excited about being able to buy lots more plants!

The top of the garden has been full of random plants that my dad found by the tracks for the last few years. So it's going to be a real battle fixing it up now. I'm going to leave the raspberry bushes there (but keep them near the back), the irises, and the vine that he planted, but pretty much everything else is gone! Everything's been running wild over the last few years, so I'm thinking it will take a few years before I can get it back under control again!

So anyway, the weather forecast was for rain this afternoon, but the sky looked pretty clear, so I started planting right when I got home. Of course, I failed to take into account the wicked wind, which kept blowing in massive clouds every ten minutes or so. I ended up hanging out beside a tree during a bit of hail, and getting rained on afterwards. But everything is planted, and looking good! I will be posting pictures on Flickr (possibly in a day or two, depending on the weather!)

Finally Updated Flickr!

Wow, I can't believe it took me a week! But my Toronto pictures, as well as a few that have been taken since then, are now on my Flickr photostream! It was weird, as I really didn't take all that many in Toronto (mostly the building pics, but also some cat pics at my friend Shawn's place).

Oh, and my dad finally posted a few more pics on Flickr. Please check them out, they're awesome! You can find them here!

Home from Toronto!

I am now home from Toronto! I had a lot of fun during my trip and cannot believe that it is over already! Now I'll have to catch up on sleep....

The first night I hung out with a couple of friends in Brampton and we had a Bad Movie Night! I would go into details, but I am trying to forget about one of the movies we watched (Queen Kong). The next day I went back into downtown Toronto and stayed with my bro. We had many wacky adventures (like buying yogurt spoons). Sadly, I did not take many pictures, but what I have will be going up on Flickr.

Toronto!!!!!

I have to get up bright and early tomorrow because I'm off to Toronto!!!!! My flight leaves at 6:30am, so it's going to be an extremely early morning. But I can't wait!!!!!

School is Over!!!!!

My final exam was this last Wednesday. I've been playing Halo since then, and didn't have a chance to update this blog. School is officially over for me this year!!!!! My two exams were both this past week, and everything else was handed in prior to that. I've gotten one of the two papers back so far and did alright on it. The two exams went alright; the Popular Fiction exam I feel extremely confident on, the Canadian Prose one not so much. But it doesn't matter, as they're both over!!!!!

A School Update

Yesterday I was officially finished two of the three major projects that I have this term. First of all, one of my two essays was handed in. This essay was for Canadian Prose; I wrote it on both Sir Richard Burton's First Footsteps in East Africa and Margaret Laurence's The Prophet's Camel Bell. While I didn't particularly enjoy reading Burton's book (I did like Laurence's), I really enjoyed writing the essay. It was a topic that interested me, which made writing it a whole lot easier.

The second project that I officially finished yesterday was my group project in Popular Fiction. I lucked out and had only one other member of my group. Between the two of us, we had the project finished this past Tuesday. The project ended up four posters depicting key issues within the graphic novel Watchmen. It was a lot of fun to make (I had fun drawing pictures of people exploding for the Nuclear War topic. I drew three pictures using charcoal which turned out rather well).

This leaves one more essay to write, and then two exams and I am finished school for the year!

360 Back Home!

My Xbox 360 came home yesterday! Well, it isn't exactly "mine" that came home yesterday. They sent me a refurbished one. I believe that they are taking in the ones that break and sending out ones that they had already fixed. But that doesn't matter to me, as all of my saved games and downloaded content are on my hard drive, which stayed home this entire time.

Needless to say, after enabling everything on the new console, I played Halo Wars all night last night.

The Continuing Xbox 360 Saga

So my 360 was shipped off last Friday. I got an email this afternoon saying that Microsoft had received it. And then when I checked my email again this evening, I had two new messages from Microsoft: my console was fixed, and it has already been shipped back to me!!!!!!!! I can't believe they've fixed it so quickly!!!!!!

The Xbox 360 Saga

On Wednesday night, I came home from a friend's house. We had been making a new map on Halo 3's Forge, which we had called "Tunnels." My friend uploaded it onto his file share, so when I got home, I tried to retrieve it. And that was when the trouble started.

Halo kept freezing. If I rebooted the 360 with the game still in it, it gave me the "red ring of death" (pictured). But if I pulled it out and rebooted, or had a different game in, then it was fine. Examining the disc, it looked rather scratched up. So I decided to unplug everything, then try it all again in the morning.

The next morning, I tried turning the 360 on. This time I couldn't even get to the dashboard. All I got was the red ring.

I tried to go online to look into repairing my console. But I ran into a bit of trouble with that, so I had to phone Xbox. I had to get going though, so I had to phone them back after school. Thankfully, I found out that Microsoft had extended the warranty of the 360 due to this problem. My 360 was still covered!

I ran over to a friend's place. We then went to get Halo resurfaced (which was probably kind of dumb - we should have tried it first). Once it was resurfaced, we tried it out, and it worked fine. So after school I had to phone Xbox back. When all was said and done, my 360 had to be sent in. It should be back within two to three weeks, and I'll be getting a free month of Xbox Live for the inconvenience!

This did come at a kind of bad time though. On the one hand, I have essays to write, so I won't be distracted by Halo Wars. But on the other hand, I'm planning on writing one of the essays on Halo, using some quotes from Halo 3...so hopefully I'll be able to rely on Youtube, or go over to a friend's place to research.

No Spacelord Again

Sorry everyone, but it's that time of year again. I have a couple of papers and a group project coming due in the next few weeks, so once again I will be putting Spacelord on hold. After today's post, Spacelord will most likely not be back until after my exams in early April.

Slumdog Millionaire Soundtrack

Well, I liked the soundtrack for Slumdog Millionaire so much, I went out and bought it today! I'm listening to it right now, and I still love it. This one's definitely going onto my iPod!

A Very General What's Going On

Well, Study Week is officially over. So I thought I would just do a quick update on how things are going (and also to hopefully remind myself of a few upcoming deadlines).

Over Study Week, I had very little I had to do. I had one book that I needed to read for school (Bridget Jones's Diary) and a project to start planning. Other than that, I was pretty free to do a bit of fun reading. I didn't take as much advantage of that as I would have liked to, but I got through about three fun books (see The List for details). Of course, I also had a grand old time wandering through bookstores, so the List has a few more titles on it now. I also picked up a few fun books, like Kittens in the Sun which is a book full of kitten pictures.

As for writing, I didn't do a whole lot until near the end of Study Week. I wrote the new Spacelord early, and had a lot of fun with the post. I also revised a story which I am planning on submitting to the LU Lit Mag sometime before midnight tonight (I'm going to look over it again before submitting it). And then I found out about a writing contest that is open for English majors at LU, so I need to come up with something before March 2.

I also got to see a few movies that I really wanted to see. Last Thursday I saw Gran Torino, the new Clint Eastwood movie. It was a really good movie; I laughed a lot throughout it. Then this Saturday night, I saw Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. It was alright. Better than the second Underworld movie (Evolution). Finally, I saw Slumdog Millionaire. I absolutely loved the music! It was a really good story.

And on Friday, I fit in a quick trip to Kakabeka where I took some nice pics of the Falls. It was a great drive on a beautiful afternoon. Check out my flickr page to see my Falls pics!

So that was my Study Week. It was a nice break, although not long enough (I would've like to have fit in a few more novels that were better than Bridget Jones).

Happy Valentine's Day and New OUTSaga Stories!

Happy Belated Valentine's to everyone!

Yesterday, I went over to a friend's house, where we had a Ham party. While there, we played four rounds of Once Upon a Time. I managed to tape most of them with my camera, and when I ran out of memory on my card (eventually I'm going to have to get a handheld recorder, but this seems to work for now), I wrote the last one and a half down. Today, I watched the videos and transcribed the stories. (Listening to the original stories was fun! That game is amazing!) So now all four of the new stories are now up on the Once Upon a Time blog, OUTSaga. As usual, they're hilarious!

Chocolove

While shopping with a friend earlier this evening, I found this fantastic chocolate bar: Chocolove. The chocolate bar itself wasn't anything overly special: it's a bar of dark chocolate with 70% cocoa (which is my favourite). No, the selling point was that there is a love poem inside!

When I first saw this selling feature, I knew I had to get the chocolate bar just for the love poem; had know what it was. So as my friend and I were walking out of Homesense, which was where I found the chocolate bar, I tore into it, looking for the love poem. The poem was titled The Sleeping Beauty by Samuel Rogers, and it was printed on the inside of the wrapper. This wasn't the type of poem I was expecting to find in a chocolate bar. I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting, but it wasn't really this. I might head back in a few days to buy another Chocolove, just to see if you end up with the same poem.

In case you can't read it in the picture, here's the poem:

The Sleeping Beauty

Sleep on, and dream of Heaven awhile -
Tho' shut so close thy laughing eyes,
Thy rosy lips still wear a smile
And move, and breathe delicious sighs!

Ah, now soft blushes tinge her cheeks
And mantle o'er her neck of snow:
Ah, now she murmurs, now she speaks
What most I wish - and fear to know!

She starts, she trembles, and she weeps!
Her fair hands folded on her breast:
-And now, how like a saint she sleeps!
A seraph in the realms of rest!

Sleep on secure! Above controul
Thy thoughts belong to Heaven and thee:
And may the secret of thy soul
Remain within its sanctuary!

-Samuel Rogers.

Emigrate

I have been after this album for about two years now. I finally got it for Christmas from my bro! I've been so excited, but I was also worried - what if Emigrate didn't hold up to the hype I had built up for it these last few years?

Luckily, I need not have worried. Emigrate rocks!!!! From the moment the first song, "Emigrate" starts, you know the album is going to be great. You can hear Richard Z. Kruspe-Bernstein's guitar, famous from Rammstein, right off the bat. There's the expected heavier music, but with a different sound (this isn't Rammstein afterall). And then around song 4, "Let Me Break In My Tears," the album changes to somewhat softer music. But it's still amazing all the way through the album.

And then the last song hits you. I have the premium edition, which has two extra songs, "Blood" and "Help Me." And "Help Me" is an absolutely amazing song! The music is different, but spectacular. His singing is a little different, but it totally works with the song! I can't really describe it any better than this, so I'm just going to recommend that everyone checks it out here.

OUTSaga

Once Upon a Time . . . a blog was born! Yes, as I mentioned back on the 5th, I have created a blog dedicated to the stories that we tell from the Once Upon a Time card game. That blog is OUTSaga (Once Upon a Time Saga).

Merry (Early!) Ukrainian Christmas

As per tradition, my family bought stocking stuffers after Christmas. The tradition that we started is that we each spend $20 on the other members of the family, wrap whatever we buy up in unmarked presents, and put them in each others' stockings. We then have a fun night of opening presents where we guess who gave us what. Normally this tradition falls on Ukrainian Christmas Eve, but this year my brother will be out of town so we opened everything earlier this evening.


This tradition is so much fun! It's always such a surprise to see what everyone gets! And this year was especially surprising: I got not one but multiple saws!!!!!


A lot of people probably don't know this about me, but last year, I was extremely sad that my brother would not let me saw the end of our Christmas tree off. This year again, my dad did the sawing and didn't even tell me he was going to bring the Christmas tree into the house! (My bro joked that I was off pouting when he came home and I wasn't around that night). There was also Christmas Eve, when we were watching Home Improvement and a guy carved a tree out of a block of ice, after which I declared that I wanted a chainsaw.


So for Ukrainian Christmas, my brother got me not one but MULTIPLE saws!!!!! On top of that, I also got a hammer and some nails. So if you need anything sawed, (or hammered) you know who to come to!

Once Upon a Time

I wandered into The Bookshelf today and found this random game. It sounded amazing, so I picked it up.

Once Upon a Time is a game that involves telling fairy stories. One player is the storyteller, who starts telling a story. They have cards with different fairy tale elements (such as events or characters), which they get to play when those elements come up in their story. Other players use their cards to steal the story from the storyteller, becoming the new storyteller themself. The winner is the player who gets through all of his or her cards and successfully guides the story to their ending card.

I have played one round of Once Upon a Time so far, and I love it! In fact, we had so much fun playing it that we might make a blog dedicated to the stories we come up with from this game!

Happy 2009!

Seasons greetings everyone, and happy 2009!!!!!

It's hard to believe that 2008 is over! So much has happened over the last year. I've started several blogs that seem to be doing well (The List has about 60 posts on it, and Apocalypse Madness has 13 contributors). I've read many great books (and some not so great ones) and have written a fair bit. I am hoping to continue with everything in 2009 (Spacelord still has a lot more story to go!), and to hopefully drum up some more activity on Apocalypse Madness.