resistance to persistence

Image property of Robert Vanderhorst.

I took a quick look at a gallery show down the street from my office on my lunch break. I saw it advertised last year, but never made it to there. Robert Vanderhorst is a surreal painter and has an exhibit called Two Artists at King & Jarvis. If you attend in the evening, there’s musical accompanyment by Nash the Slash. I really like surreal art and when I saw a review on this last year, I knew I couldn’t pass it up. The Canadian references in his paintings are nice to see and there are also some witty paintings such as “The Model Maker“, a homage to Vermeer’s painting style - a self portrait of Vanderhorst building a model airplane. The show is on for another couple of days…go see it. It’s free if you go during the day.

I just finished reading Joel On Software’s latest essay on Making Wrong Code Look Wrong and it actually presents a good case for using Hungarian Notation.
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This is a call to the software world…has anyone found a tabbed shell application for Windows? I’m going crazy with 4 dos sessions open in separate shell instances. Why hasn’t anyone created the equivalent of Konsole or Terminal for the Windows world. It’s not an elaborate or complex program idea, so I don’t know why someone wouldn’t have created it already. I just want to have tabbed instances so I don’t have 4 separate windows floating all over the place. I’ve googled around looking for such a thing, but no luck. Anyone seen this around?

I don’t know where my boss comes up with these ideas, but he’s got some funny ones. He’s going to Italy for a trip and he’s got an auction on eBay to bring along your favorite action figure, or toy, or whatever on his trip around ‘the boot’. Reminds me of the movie Amélie where the garden gnome went for a tour around the world. And on this trip, it will be all documented with great photos. Doesn’t your Barbie doll need a break from the dreamhouse? Wouldn’t your GI Joe enjoy a tour through wine country? Tell your friends and bid on the trip - I did.

Update: The bid closed and Golden Palace Casino won the auction. They’re (in)famous for publicity stunts like streakers at soccer games, tennis matches, the olympics, etc. The photos from the trip with the monkey, Tango, are available for viewing here.

This morning, walking into work I spotted Kenny Hotz just in front of me waiting outside of a bank machine. I had to stop to talk to him.
For those who aren’t familiar with him (and there’s probably lots) he’s on a little seen show called Kenny vs Spenny.

Kenny and Spenny are two best friends who compete against each other. Their competitions are ridiculous, immature and totally intense. Like most pals, Kenny and Spenny have always competed against one another. Kenny sees every contest as a way to have fun, get things for free, meet girls and humiliate his pal on national television. He feels that he can beat Spenny “fair and square” but admits that would take all the fun out of it. Kenny loves to compete against Spenny, because Spenny is an only child and isn’t used to sibling rivalry. “I’m like the tormenting brother he never had and probably didn’t want.”

The show aired on CBC around dinner time - I guess CBC thought it would appeal to kids, but I found it to be a bit violent and dealt more adult-themed issues, even though these 2 guys are very immature.

Here’s examples of some of their competitions:

Who can stay awake the longest?
Who can stand up the longest?
Who can sit on a cow the longest?
Who is the sanest?
Who can earn the most money in three days?
Who can stay blindfolded the longest?
Who can win a beauty pageant?
Who can lose the most weight?
Who can stay handcuffed the longest?
Who can put on the best concert?
Who is the strongest?
Who makes the most convincing woman?
Who is the best male stripper?
Who is the best figure skater?
Who will use their arms first?
Who can survive in the woods the longest?
Who can live in a van the longest?

Think of MTV’s Jackass meets Survivor. It’s no-holds barred and Kenny always has a sneeky plan. I’ve seen them stay up for 3 days straight, stay handcuffed to each other for a very long time (going to the washroom was very funny), try to sleep standing up, and dress in drag to host a tea party for a bunch of women. Hilarious. The loser of the competition gets to be humiliated by the winner. I’ve seen them humiliate each other by being forced to run down Yonge St naked, parade on a streetcorner as a hooker and try to pickup men (a cop car even showed up shortly after).

It’s a hilarious show, but CBC hasn’t shown it in a couple years. I went searching for it and found it on the GameShow Network which I don’t get. So I had to talk to Kenny this morning when I saw him to find out what’s going on. He told me it’s coming back soon on Showcase. Showcase always plays great shows, like the brilliant Trailer Park Boys. Kenny also mentioned that now “it’s totally hardcore”. I can’t wait to see it. He asked me if I liked the show and I enthusiastically told him “I love it!”. I can’t wait to see it on again. Check it out if you get Showcase.

UPDATE: Check it out, Kenny actually found my site and replied in the comments. I’m not sure how he found my site so soon, but I’m impressed. Check Kenny’s site for his latest work - Papal Chase, an attempt to meet Pope John Paul II to win a $1000 bet.

Bennifer2 is in town. Affleck is filming a movie, and it’s 4 blocks from my office. Garner flew in and they’ve been spotted around town. I’ve got my eyes peeled. I walked past the shoot when I was out for lunch today, but they’re doing some interior shots. The outside is all done up with vintage cars and buildings decorated like flower shops, but no action outside yet. I’ll pass by on my way home. I should have brought my camera. The trusty phonecam might have to do the job.

I wonder if I could go to this instead of being at the office:

Code Maneuvers 05, is a series of Developer Days, hosted by Sun Microsystems, that combine tactical developer insights with practical programming execution, to provide vision, direction and in-depth knowledge training for developers, thought leaders and architects. This event will present state-of-the-art intelligence about Sun’s software technologies, strategies and development methodologies.
Admission is FREE, but you must pre-register to attend.

Agenda
8:00 am Registration Opens
9:00 - 9:30 am Sun Keynote: Vision & Strategy
9:30 - 10:15 am J2SE 5.0 Watch and Hear the Tiger Roar!
10:15 - 10:30 am Break;
10:30 - 11:15 am Java Web Services: Building Service Oriented Architectures
11:15 - 12:00 pm J2EE Persistence: Exploring Persistence Options
12:00 - 1:00 pm Lunch
1:00 - 1:45 pm Java Studio Creator: Rapid Applications & Solutions
1:45 - 3:15 pm CodeCamp: J2SE & J2EE Performance
3:15 - 3:30 pm Break
3:30 - 5:00 pm CodeCamp: End-2-End Security, Architecting Secure and Robust Solutions
5:00 - 5:30 pm Q & A

I’ve been looking at the Nikon D70 for a while, as the prices slowly drop. And I’ve been wanting to get it for while. But I also have a habit of jumping into purchases and just buying whatever I want, rather than waiting and working for them. I’m also too spontaneous when it comes to purchases. So to combat that, I’ve challenged myself. I’ve been posting some of my best photography to my photoblog since January. My challenge is to post one photo, for each day, for 365 days. This has also been something that I’ve struggled to do routinely but my challenge also does a second job of keeping me from missing days as I had in the past. Two birds with one stone. Actually, it’s more like three birds with one stone because it motivates me to continually take photos and improve. You can’t post interesting photos if you run out of shots. Maybe there’s four birds with one stone (what a great stone!) - once I’ve built up a reasonable sized portfolio of decent shots, I want to self-publish a book of my work. It’s a stretch goal, one that I’ve talked about before, but definitely something I aspire to do.

So, at the end of my 365 days, if I’ve successfully completed my challenge, I’ll know I’m truly commited to continuing with photography and I’ll reward myself with a shiny new D70.

How have you challenged yourself? Leave some comments.

Sappy, cheesy alert!

In 6 days, I’ll have been married for 1 year. Time flies when you’re having fun. The year has been so busy with house & jobs that it’s been a blur. And we’ve both had a great time. Our relationship is greater than ever, we get along so well, and I’m not as picky and anal retentive (I still have my moments) as I used to be. J’s been really fun to spend my free time with. We’re rarely apart outside of work. Even weekend errands we go together just so we can spend our time together. Not always smart in terms of divide & conquer - get the work done, but it’s definitely more enjoyable. Although lately, I’ve seen enough furniture and I’d be glad if J just came home with all our furniture picked out. But I’m actually picky on design so I need to have a say in that stuff.

Married - I definitely recommend it.