Jim Roepcke's weblog have browser, will travel (est. 1999)

Who let the WMD out?

[via Rafe] Whiskey Bar: What a Tangled Web We Weave . .

Mark my words, the weapons will be found, even if they have to be planted first.

RvB Blood Gulch Chronicles

Red vs Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles [2003]

I saw these a while back but didn't bother to watch the movies, but last night I saw a favourable post about them on Boing Boing and decided it was about time.

Having played a lot of Halo, esp. in four-player deathmatch mode, makes these even sweeter. Hilarious stuff. I can't wait for the next episode!

Finally a Cocoa quick reference

I love the O'Reilly Nutshell books, because I can find what I need quickly, and they are relatively cheap and easy to handle compared to big monster volumes.

Therefore I'm understandably thrilled that Mike Beam and James Duncan Davidson have released Cocoa in a Nutshell!

I just ordered it on amazon.ca. Free shipping... damn they make it too easy.

Grad Ceremony

Last night Cheryl and I attended her kid brother Shane's high school graduation ceremony. It was a pretty good ceremony overall. It's always a very inspirational event, trying to drum up the courage in the student body to continue to excel past school.

(It was the other way around for me -- I couldn't wait to be free of those chains so I could unleash myself on the world!)

It was a loooong ceremony though... three and a half hours. A bit too long, and too late at night too, because by the time it was over it was dark and there were no good photo ops on the lawns of the university like Cheryl and I had when we grad'd.

Most of the ceremony was watching each student go across the stage, slowly, while their personal message was read by one of two vice-principals behind the podiums at either end of the auditorium. Every once in a while there was a great message, something humourous or powerful, and that made it bearable. It was sad to hear one girl's message, something to the affect of "Thank you dad for believing in me, even though I know I disappointed you many times." Ouch. There were only a few duplicates. I was disappointed no-one's message was "this space intentionally left blank". Oh well. I'm sure Elliot was proud he got a teacher to say "Elliot is the greatest human being in the world!"

Just my luck, Cheryl was clapping as I was trying to get a picture of Shane in the middle of the stage with the principal and she bumped my arm, resulting in a fuzzy picture. I should have gone down to the front of the stage like other parents were doing to get a proper picture, or sat forward in my seat to avoid her enthusiasm. A once in a lifetime opportunity wasted. Sorry Shane.

After the ceremony we went to Raymond's (restaurant) for Chinese. A great night by any standard.

RE: Ice Man’s outdoor adventure

So far my brother in law Chuck, and friend Justin have both expressed interest in going to the outdoor hockey games in Edmonton this November. Should be fun!

Oilers alum play a round with Tiger

Edmonton Sun: K-Lowe and MacT's excellent adventure

(Oilers coach) Craig MacTavish actually got honours on one hole. An excellent adventure indeed. Oh, and speaking of excellent adventures, I saw Matrix Reloaded again (2nd time) last night, with Cheryl and her brother Shane. Cheryl was bored to sleep by the previews and had trouble staying up for the rest of the show.

For shame!

Ice Man’s outdoor adventure

Ice Man's outdoor adventure

I... MUST... HAVE... TICKETS... TO... THESE... GAMES.

OmniGraffle Pro is very cool

I used OmniGraffle 3 Professional this week to draw up some state diagrams for some tricky web UI I was working on. I've used OmniGraffle 1 and 2 in the past to do these, but hadn't used OmniGraffle 3 yet. I decided to try it out since they have free trial licenses on their site.

W-O-W. I was sold before I even downloading it, just looking at the pro page and the samples page. Then I used it. I got that feeling I get whenever I use a truly killer app for the first time. Giddyness, mostly.

State machine written, UI working... and documented with state diagrams.

This is a weblog, not a web journal…

This is a weblog, not a web journal... and hence, I am not a journalIST. People with financial stakes in the weblog tools market are publicly hoping that webloggers will hold similar or even higher standards than commercial journalists. I guess that improves the credibility of weblogs and increases the market for their software, since people will hopefully get the bullshit impression that if they have a weblog they can say credible things too make all their friends jealous at the attention they get so they start one too.

Whatever.

Here's my opinion on weblogs: A weblog is a web site, with a home page typically organized in a reverse chronological fashion, containing links to things the maintainer finds interesting, and sometimes personal commentary and opinion. Typically maintained by one person with a public identity, but sometimes anonymous or in groups. That's about it. It's the original vision of a weblog, one that was lost when people started seeing $$.

I do not tell the news, I am not a news broadcaster. If I want to comment on something I read on the news or saw happen in person, I do it from my own point of view and I make no claims to have done a "proper job" of researching the entire situation. I have no agenda to brainwash the people who read this site into adopting similar opinions.

Of course the weblog tool makers, or at least the ones with dreams of replacing the NY Times, aren't going to let up on this journalism thing, because the news market is just too big and rich and too juicy a target to try to take over or get a slice of.

In the mean time, I'm going to read my favorite weblogs, which often contain pictures of their maintainer's cats and stories about what they thought of the last movie they went to see, and which singer they thought should have won the Idol show or Survivor.

Sorry, but I only have dogs, no cats. And I saw the Matrix Reloaded last week. I really liked it, but the fight scenes were a bit too long I thought. Not enough scenes with Carrie Anne Moss in her black leather outfit, either.

Dr. Cat and online shopping

On Sunday we went to Vancouver to attend the celebration surrounding one of our best and longest friends graduating medical school. Congratulations Cat, we're so proud of you!

Cheryl and the kids got to stay overnight and spend the day with Cat in Vancouver today, walking around Granville Island and surrounding areas for a few hours, gorging themselves on all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ, shoe shopping, etc. All while I slogged away in a 7th floor downtown office building with no air conditioning (because it's a statuatory holiday and we were the only people in the building) while a parade blared over inner voices on the street below.

I'm glad Cheryl had this opportunity to spend time her friend (and Cyan's godmother), because Cat is moving to Ottawa for at least two years to do her residency. Our time with her has been precious in the last 7 years as she was all over the place. Vietnam, Africa, who knows where else (Cheryl does, sorry I can't remember all the places).

In other news, Cheryl walked into my office this evening and noticed Amazon.com's home page open in my browser. She sat at my chair, and noticed a cute little girl's outfit for sale shown on the home page... Osh Kosh has a 50% off summer sale. "OOoohh, isn't that cute!"

Amazon.com, meet Cheryl. Cheryl, meet e-commerce. Jim, be afraid, be very afraid.

"If you spend $75 you get free shipping!"

Gulp!