Dangling Conversations

Colour commentary on the world we live in

4 Things

Posted 30 Sep, 2006 at 08:49 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link

A little something...

Four jobs I’ve had in my life
youth counsellor
farm hand
business process re-engineer
product manager

Four movies I can watch over and over
White Christmas
Shrek
Sound Of Music
The Fifth Element

Four places I have lived
Orangeville, Ontario, Canada
New York, New York, USA
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Waterloo, Ontaio, Canada

Four TV shows I love to watch
(this is very hard for someone without a TV)
CSI
Firefly/Babylon 5/ST:TNG (and various other extinct sci-fi shows)
Discovery Channel
Music Videos (MTV, MuchMusic, VH1)

Four places I have been on vacation
Mardi Gras, New Orleans
Signal Hill, Newfoundland
Highlands Backpacking Trail, Algonquin
Cat's Pyjama's B&B, Lion's Head

Four websites I visit daily
Questionable Content
Jay Is Games
CNN
Travian

Four of my favorite foods
Pad Thai
BBQ T-bone steak and a baked potato with butter and sour cream
Pie (and other pastries)
Fruit (almost any kind)

Four places I would rather be right now
camping
someplace new/on an adventure
playing ultimate
anyplace with friends

Four bloggers I am tagging
Matt
Kael
Brent
Wendy

If you've been tagged, the only rules are you must answer the same questions, and you must tag 4 new bloggers.

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Can't Stop The Serenity

Posted 21 Jun, 2006 at 08:52 by blue in /MovingPictures | Permanent link

So, Serenity is making another big screen appearance, this time for charity. Toronto is one of 47 screens around the world that will be re-showing the movie on the big screen thanks to its loyal following of fans, known as Browncoats.

Saturday June 24th in Toronto for those who are interested.

Read the article here Or the website here
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Life for sale

Posted 07 Jun, 2006 at 12:10 by blue in /Social | Permanent link

Ever heard of Gen-Pets?

Neither had I until I found a link to their site.

A little disturbing at first and I kept following links on the site looking for the page that would say "ha ha... this is all a joke".

I couldn't find it. If you can, let me know.

See more ...

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Puzzle 1 - From Brazil

Posted 21 Apr, 2006 at 11:11 by blue in /Games | Permanent link

I can't take credit for creating this puzzle, and can not give credit as the person who told it to me only said that it came from Brazil. None the less, it is a clever little puzzle and I think those of you who read the site will enjoy it.

If you get it, let me know in the comments. I'll post the solution there in a week or so if no one else has solved it by then.

See more ...

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Mystic Ball

Posted 12 Apr, 2006 at 08:12 by blue in /Games | Permanent link

I'll jump on board the 'awesome things' bandwagon with one of my own recent finds.

This link is to a short segment related to the documentary film called Mystic Ball. Think of it as hacky sack with a half sized soccer ball.

It is showing as part of the Hot Doc's festival here in Toronto. You can get the showtimes here.

I think it looks very cool. What about you?

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Posted 14 Mar, 2006 at 14:47 by blue in /Games | Permanent link

For those of you who, like me, constantly like to see what the latest little web games are (but get tired of poorly made side scrollers and FPS's... here is a nice little word puzzle you can enjoy. Word Sandwich is a clever little game that tests your vocabulary, or at least... your 5-letter word vocabulary.

Post some of your scores so I have an idea how I rank at around 10,000 each time I play.

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Spore

Posted 07 Mar, 2006 at 07:47 by blue in /Games | Permanent link

Here is a little video highlighting a new game... personally... I think this game looks fantastic. Most of my favorite games of the past wrapped up into one.

> >

What do you think?

See more ...

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Neat Lego Projects

Posted 07 Mar, 2006 at 06:40 by blue in | Permanent link

I came across this page of cool lego projects and thought I'd share it.

Those here may want to pay particular attention to the Difference Engine someone built.

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Genetics are fun!

Posted 05 Mar, 2006 at 08:04 by blue in /World | Permanent link

For those who enjoy the wonderful variety that genetics can produce... here is one for you...

Two parents, both of mixed racial background, gave birth to twins... but the twins are one of each race.

The odds of this happening are apparently quite high, as you might guess, but I mean... wow... a black girl and a white girl who can honestly state with conviction that they are each other's twin.

Cool eh?

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Where is Desiree?

Posted 03 Mar, 2006 at 07:44 by blue in /Arts | Permanent link

Here is a neat little bit of Camoflague. Now, you too can play your own home-made version of Where's Waldo.

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The 39 Dollar Experiment

Posted 03 Mar, 2006 at 07:36 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link

IN keeping with my previous post about $2 bills, here is another fun sort of experiment you can run.

Tom Locke, average Joe, took $39 in stamps and e-mailed companies to see what sort of free-bee's he could get... with the hope of improving on his $39 investment.

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Another Virgin Music Muscle Game

Posted 01 Mar, 2006 at 08:53 by blue in /Music | Permanent link

Virgin records previously put up a contest which showed a picture and you had to guess which bands were represented.

Now they have gone one further and released a video where you have to guess the names of songs represented.

Here are a couple to get you started:

Purple Rain Message In A Bottle Dancing Queen Hotel California

I'm up to about 25 songs already and I'm sure there are more I'm not seeing.

One word of caution, if you listen to the song they play in the background too much, it will get stuck in your head.

Good luck! (and post your guesses here in the comments!)

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Puzzler?

Posted 28 Feb, 2006 at 15:51 by blue in /Games | Permanent link

Here is a link to a nice little puzzler.

Gameplay is fairly easy to figure out, though it will likely take you a couple of tries to win it (by the theory that it took me two tries to win, and everyone is like me... right?) Okay maybe not, but it's probably worth a minute or two if you're looking for something as a brain break.

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Yet another free MMORPG...

Posted 28 Feb, 2006 at 08:17 by blue in /Games | Permanent link

Actually, I was reviewing several recently, but figured I'd share one of te cuter ones here... Dofus.

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What's Up?

Posted 24 Feb, 2006 at 14:58 by blue in /World | Permanent link

Want to know what is going on around the world? A pretty cool interface for seeing headline news around the world was sent to me this morning.

While I think it can be greatly improved on (the ability to configure it, set keywords/interets, level of detail etc), it is a neat start. Some may say "what's the big deal? get an RSS reader" and they would be right... this isn't much different... but I'm a visual person and this is pretty.

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Bored?

Posted 24 Feb, 2006 at 08:37 by blue in /Social | Permanent link

For those of you who live in the United States, here is a little something fun you can do...

Get a stack of $2 US bills and try to spend them.

'$2 bill' you say? 'No such' thing exists you say? Apparently, it does.

Don't think it would be entertaining? Here is a short story that illustrates some of the fun you can have.

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World's cultural loss during times of war

Posted 23 Feb, 2006 at 08:26 by blue in /World | Permanent link

Regardless of your beliefs, this is a terrible thing.

If the image doesn't mean anything to you, you can read one of the many news articles on the bombing of the Golden Mosque at CNN or Wikipedia.

I remember when I visited Germany in 1992 and saw scaffolding around many buildings. When asked about it, our guides indicated that in many cases it was to do restoration on old buildings... removing soot and other effects from things such as acid raid (notice how you don't hear about that in the news anymore? Do you think acid rain really stopped, or we just have new catch phrases for the media?).

However, many of the buildings were also having a different sort of restoration done. Repair from damage from World War II and allied bombings. One church I visited had photos of their stained glass windows... pre-1944... done by various masters of the craft. They currently had about 6 of the 30 windows restored and were working on collecting funds to do the rest.

Now consider that... a wealthy, prosporous nation like West Germany was still repairing things.

Irag, and a city like Baghdad, probably one of the oldest cities on the planet, just had the American war machine roll over it. I know that the US military actively tries to avoid directly bombing targets of cultural or religious significance... but war is war. Terrorist attacks, and, those who are in fact specifically targeting locations of cultural significance are even less discriminating - need I remind anyone of the Buddha's destroyed in Afghanistan?

Regardless of your cultural background, I think it is a profound loss when one of these achivements is detroyed or lost. I was pleased to see, and hope that it is followed up on, that the US Ambassador to Iraq has offered US help in rebuilding the mosque. That said, things rebuilt can never be quite the same. Don't you agree?

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Multi Touch Screens

Posted 13 Feb, 2006 at 10:35 by blue in /Technical | Permanent link

We're all familiar with the standard touch monitors that get used in places like airports and so on.

With current screens though, they can usually only register one point of contact at a time.

Check out this neat video demonstrating some applications possible with a multi-touch monitor.

Personally, I like a couple of the applications (the photo sorter, the mapping tool) and would love to see this become a reality.

What other applications do you think this would be good for and would you use it? Or are you a fan of the mouse and keyboard?

Comments (1 comment so far)

One Red Paperclip

Posted 08 Feb, 2006 at 07:49 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link

What would you trade for a red paper clip?

Would you trade for a cube van?

That is so far what this guy has been able to do.

Starting with a red paper clip and trading up for constantly bigger and bigger things has thus far netted him a cube van. His goal? A house. Personally, I'm curious to see if he can do it.

So... umm.. I've got several red paperclips... what will you give me for them? ;)

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Max Stevens...

Posted 02 Feb, 2006 at 11:52 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link

... you come across people in the strangest places...

While looking for information with regards to Internet Explorer 7.0 I came across a familiar name to many here who read this.

I feel like breaking out into a chours of It's a Small World...

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Hows & Whys
Who we are

Blue has been known to toss a disc around a field from time to time, and thinks that you should as well. He lives either on the Internet or in Toronto, depending on your perspective. Ask him no questions and there's a good chance he'll tell you no lies. [Site]

Brent hosts the box from which we dangle our conversations, for which we are all eternally grateful. Gratitude is most easily expressed in small bills. Formerly a pawn of the Evil Empire (or maybe a Knight), he has gone over the wall and now toils at a small computer game company in Alberta that no one except for ten million gamers has ever heard of. [Site]

Kael occasionally gets called "Mike"; mostly by people who don't know him. He cooks, he cleans, he maintains Unix servers... what else could you ask for? Currently a slave to the Man, by which we mean retail sales. He has secret plans, but we can't tell you about them. In fact, we've already said too much. [Site]

Lisa is a recreational therapist without a cause. She entertains dreams of ruling over an empire of scrapbooking. Has a well-deserved reputation for enthusiasm, common sense, and tiredness. Ask her about her teapots, but don't touch them.

Matt is just this guy, you know? A mathematician by training and a layabout by inclination; he currently has an Urban Commuter Campus in the American Midwest convinced that they should pay him for plying these trades. The designer and administrator of this site, which means in a sense this is all his fault. [Site | E-mail]

Sky is a salesman during the day. At night he doesn't bother: his words are like unto those of a god, and you can agree or you can be wrong. Lives in the World of Warcraft, with a sattelite office in Toronto. Known to play games on occasion.

Wendy has never run away to join the circus, but pursuing graduate work in medical imaging is perhaps just as good. She didn't choose her current abode on the basis of proximity to a Toronto Public Library branch, but we wouldn't put it past her. Married to one of the other authors here, but you'll have to read the archives to find out which one. [Site]

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