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

Absolutely Amazing goal by Jason Spezza

I saw an amazing goal this evening, and just found this link to a video of it on the Oilfans forum.

Overtime winner by Jason Spezza of the Ottawa Senators against the Montreal Canadiens.

Even if you're not a hockey fan, I think you've got to be impressed by this display of speed, skill and creativity.

Video iPod screen is unbelievable

My friend Sam just got (himself) a 5th Generation iPod (video) for his birthday. A black one. It's absolutely gorgeous... and the screen... amazing. I've seen the nano's screen, viewed many photos on it, and that was great too, but I think the screen on the new iPod is even better! I watched a few videos and looked any many pictures, and I couldn't believe how sharp, bright and vivid the screen was.

Happy Birthday Sam!

I placed very high in PokerStars Blogger Tourney!

Wow. If I had called a big bet with 69 (and taken a massive pot with a boat against two people with AT/AQ) and then, the next hand, called another big bet with 55 (and taken another massive pot against great hands with another boat) late in the game, I could have won a 24" LCD or an Xbox 360 today!

But I didn't. Those decisions seemed pretty smart at the time. Hehe.

Instead, I finished the top PokerStars.net player in the tourney of 1473 (which also includes PokerStars.com players obviously), 2nd in Canada (assuming people declare their city honestly), and well enough to win an iPod nano!

I'm really proud of myself. I was rooting for an Xbox 360 but it wasn't to be... once I got moved from being in chip lead to a table where the chip leader was directly to my right, the writing was on the wall.

I led the tourney several times, and for a very long time I was in the top 3, top 5, and then in the top 15 until near the end.

Honestly I didn't expect to do anywhere near that well, but I did think I'd be above average, knowing the competition were from a population of bloggers and not necessarily a population of poker enthusiasts (which I am).

I've been trying to pawn off the ipod to the people still in the tourney for a 360, in case one of them isn't a gamer. So far no luck, LOL! Yeah I'm shameless.

Thanks for the game PokerStars, I enjoyed it tremendously, and can't wait for the next one!

Update: I forgot to mention, one had to place at least 36th to win an iPod, and 16th to win an Xbox 360.

Debating Intelligent Design, by example

The Abstract Factory: The only debate on Intelligent Design that is worthy of its subject (via Mr. Barrett)

Subscribe to funny video via iTunes thanks to del.icio.us

macosxhints: Subscribe to del.icio.us video via iTunes

I downloaded some of the videos currently available in that feed, and they are indeed funny! I especially loved the Streblo! movie.

Fireworks factory explosion

Video of a Fireworks factory on fire

Keith Schofield likes Pi

Keith Schofield / Pi

Um, thanks for the link Damien. No, really.

iTunes Canada: Good news and bad news

Apple: iTunes - Videos

First the bad news. I can't get to the video store (music videos or TV shows) in the Canadian iTunes music store. (The page analogous to the one linked above doesn't exist on apple.ca right now) I can't say I'm surprised, it's obviously asking too much to be able to have digital content cross borders legally.

The good news, I guess, is that one Nickelback album is now available on the iTunes music store. Their recent album "All the Right Reasons" is the #1 album in iTMS Canada, and their single Photograph is the #1 song.

Back to the bad news. Why isn't Apple being forthcoming about this? The "Videos" link on the iTunes page of apple.ca goes to the podcasting page. Do they have absolutely no plans or ETA for having this content available here? I also noticed the iTunes Canada home page has a link to download iTunes 6, but the iTunes section of apple.ca (including the download page) is for iTunes 5.

Now the iPod page:

Apple.com: "With support for up to 150 hours(4) of video and a 2.5-inch color display, the new iPod lets you take music videos and TV shows on the road."

... "Watch video podcasts, music videos and your favorite TV shows."

Apple.ca: "With MPEG-4 and H.264 video support and a 6.35 cm (2.5-inch) colour display, the new iPod lets you watch up to 150 hours of video(3)."

... "Watch video podcasts and your favourite music videos."

I guess that just about says it. We don't get to play. Damn. I was looking forward to buying shows for my kids to watch on the Mac mini we bought. It took around 19 months for iTMS to get to Canada, another 10.5 months to get the a popular Canadian rock band's music on the store... I don't even want to wager a guess as to when we'll finally get music videos and TV shows. Hopefully it's right around the corner but I'm not holding my breath.

Oh, and that new iMac is freaking cool. Unfortunately it doesn't come with Quicken 2006 like it does in the US (maybe the CDN version isn't out yet?), but it does still come with Front Row and the built-in iSight. Thanks Apple!

Mail server setup, IMAP it is

Over the weekend I upgraded my Linux box to FC4, and then configured it to be the primary storage for my personal email account.

I set up Cyrus IMAPd, Sendmail and Fetchmail. Fetchmail contacts my ISP's POP server to get my email, sends it to Sendmail (which in turn gets procmail to call SpamAssassin to identify spam) which then delivers the mail to Cyrus.

I did this because my mail was getting too big for my PowerBook's HD, and I wanted to be able to access my mail from any computer in my house, or from school, or anywhere else.

As a result I've lost the ability to search my mail using Spotlight, which sucks hard, but seeing as Spotlight searchs on my machine were dog slow and inaccurate anyway (re-indexing my drive might have helped, I don't know), I don't see it as a big loss.

Next I'm going to do Cheryl's account, because she likes to access her email from her PowerBook G3 in the kitchen (which she works on) and the family's mac mini in our bedroom.

TSN is podcasting

TSN.ca is now podcasting!

OTR (Off the Record) is a great sports talk show on TSN, I'm stoked that it's being podcast, because I rarely make time to sit at the TV and watch it.