The silence of the fish tank is deafening...

The fish tank has been in decline for some time now, but Sharon and I have been trying to maintain the look - and life, associated with the tank. That is until about a week or two ago when we were talking about moving some furniture around and realize through the course of the conversation that neither of us really wanted the fish tank, and that we were only maintaining it because we thought the other liked it.... classic....
Not wanting to simply flush our little guys to that horrible tank in the back yard (we are on a septic system), we decided to let them loose in a nearby weedy overgrown pond. They are old, they are tropical, and they are brightly coloured so no expecting them to last long in that environment, but at least they can go out fighting!

Movie Review: Deja Vu

We watched Deja Vu last night and I liked it quite a bit. The idea reminded me of some thoughts I had back in high school about time travel and thinking that traveling faster than light may not take you back in time but might allow you to see back in time (at least within a certain time period). Also seemed to touch on the "observer effect" - which I think learned about as either the "Hawthorne Effect" or the "Heisenburg Principle" which basically says that the act of observing something changes the possible outcomes, so you are never really observing what is really happening.
Anyway, I think I liked the movie because it got me thinking about some of these things - it stimulated a few brain cells that have been dormant for a while.... I liked it... On a side note I'm thinking of taking the Hawthorne Effect to work and putting it into practice... ;)

Alziemers

Had a thought today - how well do Alziemers sufferers respond to chat-based communication using old pictures of people they know as the visual communication indicator? I have heard that people with Alziemers can remember things from their past but have trouble with new memories. I have also heard of some places that put display cases of memorabelia in front of sufferer's rooms and they seem to be able to remember their stuff and therfore remember where their room is... So this got me thinking, I can see how an older person who has trouble making new memories could begin to not recognize (ie. remember) their kids, because as kids grow up they change shape, appearance, mannerisms, etc. So what if you remove everything from this equation with the only visible queues being an unchanging and known picture of the person they are typing messages to... Anyone know about this stuff? Could this work?

Internet Security

I was talking to a friend about internet security stuff on sites like Facebook, Classmates (which sucks, can't do much of anything without paying), MySpace, etc. - information goldmine for identity theft... I should remove a lot of my work stuff from LinkedIn for the same reason, but I find the functionality handy. One thing I always do is give a fake birthday and never info on my family.... I just think of those "security questions" the bank asks when I call to do telephone banking - along with address and stuff that anyone can get, they ask your birthday and mother's maiden name, etc...
Another theory, I know many people who use the same username and password for different sites: I wonder if some of these sites ever run scripts to see if their client's usernames and passwords work on Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.
I've already had a bad spam experience that I am positive was triggered by an ecard (so I don't accept those any more...). One of the types of spam I received was ads to buy CDs full of "guaranteed valid" email addresses for mass marketing. Got me thinking - how do they know the email addresses are valid? Well, at some point you must have responded to one of their emails - which would include following the "remove" instructions on spam and also answering ecards from non-reputable sites (in the ecard case they get 2 email addresses for the price of one...). Spam is the #1 reason that I use Yahoo for my email, their spam filters are fabulous...

Restaurant Review: Ten Restaurant & Wine Bar

Went to "Ten Restaurant & Wine Bar" at Hwy 10 and Lakeshore last night with friends from work. Started with a Guinness - only had the cans but that's okay, its what I have at home. Had the wellington burger - excellent, one of - if not the best hamburger I've ever had!

Take a Guess...

On my way into the office this morning I passed a well-endowed woman wearing a T-shirt that read "Guess".

I successfully resisted the urge to ask if the answer was plural and started with a "t" or "b"...

its official - I'm old....

I crossed a line last night... I used hair colour on my grey hair... I said I never would, and I did.

But really its no big deal - more for fun than anything else. My hairdresser, Rose, suggested I use "Ashen Blond" just to gloss things over a bit. I couldn't find that colour so we went with "Sandy Blond". Not bad, a little auburn showing up on top and lots of grey still showing on the sides. I might try it again in the fall and through the winter, but the summer is all about the sun...

Movie Review: Crank

Not going to spend much time here, in short Crank was disappointing. I loved The Transporter and that's where I started considering movies with Jason Statham as good picks. But after Transporter 2 (come on, give me a break with the car barrel-roll bomb removal sequence - please...) and now this, he might have to come off the watch list...not so much because of him, but because of the director/producer teams he's working with...my opinion.

Confused Google Ads?

I've been watching the ads that Google has been placing on my blog and I think my scatter-brained set of topics are confusing the system a bit - some very odd ad-link hits... I tried changing the scope of the blog a bit by limiting the number of entries that appear at one time but that doesn't seem to help. (Note: you can access earlier posts from the menus at the left). Personally I like to have everything on one page so that I don't have to click around to see more stuff, I can just scroll. Thoughts from anyone on this? I've also been thinking of grouping topics together in sub-blogs - what about that? Nah, all in one is a lot easier...

Pirate eye-patch

Wow... Just watched an episode of Mythbusters where they tested the ability to make it through an obstacle course in the dark. The trick being that by wearing an eye patch over one eye they could switch from day vision to night vision almost immediately. The show was looking at a bunch of pirate-related myths (likely spawned by the release of the latest "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie) and this one is totally practical and likely real and a misunderstood way of moving from the upper deck to below-decks in bad lighting. Although today's pirates who sport eye-patches are likely only around at Halloween, I think this still applies for the kids - use the patch on one eye while running around in the dark (doing those things that you do on Halloween), then switch to the other eye after collecting candy at a house where the lights are on. The eye previously covered by the patch should have better night vision since it was covered while at the house (or define 1 eye as the house eye and the other as the dark eye and switch before and after the house visit).
Anyway, just thought this was neat. Now I wonder what the parrot was used for...?

Fuel Comsumption vs. Emissions

I've been wondering... My assumption has always been that the vehicle that can go the farthest on a set amount of fuel is the most environmentally friendly. Is that a correct assumption? Do some vehicles go farther but produce more harmful by-products? But then thinking over the course of lifetime use, does the saved fuel of the more "efficient" vehicle offset the more harmful emissions of the other...? Thoughts?