Okay, so the aforementioned book i paid for, but then couldn’t listen to immediately was by “Gordy Lachance.”

Eight or nine some-odd hours later having this on whilst i did my house-ly chores and in the short lulls at work, I listened to 10 minute tracks, batched into chapters of some IRL lolling but mostly just relating goodness. I vaguely remember sitting back home in Surrey and watching Stand By Me back in 2002 or so after catching it on TV during one of the many 10min/2hr breaks I took to relieve stress from cramming for tests. Ahh, how I don’t miss those days. It was then that I *really* realized that Gordy was actually Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: TNG.. i mean, i’d known before but it just never clicked. Being the total geek I am, I searched for web presence and I found WWdN. I remember reading it and totally relating to his shitrials and tribulashits with my own and also having an internet boner for his writing style which I felt was similar to mine.. which was really me trying to be cool like Rain Noe.

I read his stuff for the good part of that year until I got bored and sick of what seemed like just bitching and complaining. I thought I could see where he was coming from, but it always felt like everything he wrote came with such a giant chip on his shoulder and it was all I could do to not fall into that hate-gap with him. I had my own shit to deal with, and though it was cool to hear he was having shit too, it got tiresome to hear him weblog about the shitty end of his stick. I take that back, I didn’t get “tired” it was probably more that I interpreted it like he was taking short internet jabs back at these people who were treating him like shit. So, I stopped.

It wasn’t again till this year where I searched out his site again and found that the books he’d written had been translated into audio in a very easily accessible format that I could multitask with other shit I had to do. I always wanted to read it because I felt i could relate, but was afraid to read hours of what i thought would be pettyish “eat that $asshole.” I’m happy to say that I finished his book in nearly single sitting and am more glad to be proven wrong. It’s different hearing the emphasis he puts to the words so I could put the sarcasm in the right spot.. it doesn’t change the fact that some of the parts i thought he was acting like a dick, but hey, who hasn’t been.

Overall I liked the book a lot and it basically chronicles his life and the lies he told himself that brought him from Stand By Me’s Gordy to TNG’s Wesley back to an IRL Gordy all the while dealing with the blurred line between Wheaton and the characters he’s played. Those “lies” I think are something we all tell ourselves at one time or another so you can easily relate, and it’s totally cool to see his transformation over the 2-4 year span and get a glimpse of what the TNG cast was like. Note: I always thought Frakes and Stewart would be star trek jerks, but it’s cool to read that they’re not.

Anyway, I recommend the book.. but only if you’re into this kind of stuff: If you’ve been angsty, felt incredibly bitter about life and convinced yourself time and time again to stick it out and go for it.. this is a book for you. If you’ve read the blog and think some of his remarks are snide or petty.. this was a nice surprise and might change your mind.

If you hate Star Trek: TNG.. this is not the book for you. If you dislike optimism and that burning, squinting eye feeling when you get totally into a book and read for 5 hours straight.. this book is not for you. If you just suffer from the latter, the audiobook may be for you.

Edit:

At any rate, i was promptly emailed half a day later and the link problem is fixed. I now have my legit copy of the book.

It’s over. It took me longer than i thought because I kept getting side tracked looking for new clothes and hair and cutlasses, but alas, my pirating days in Albion are done.

I liked the game overall. It wasn’t long and never felt boring like some of the Final Fantasy games out there, actually, any jrpg. Best part of the game for me was the combat system and the character styling you get to do. I hate how some games give you badass armor or weapons that look awesome as an item graphic, then you equip it, and it’s the same generic stick you’re going to have all game to fight with. Not the case here. Also, I got to make my character a pirate.. and in my unending thirst to get more & more shit for my character for the lowest price possible, he’s a butt pirate.. named Desperado.

Overall review + a spoiler after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bikram Yoga, as described by wikipedia and confirmed by myself when I went to try it out this long weekend with a few friends, is yoga for 90 minutes in hot-hot heat. Simply put, kind of a crock as far as yoga goes.

This is going to be a bit of a rant, and a bit of a review.

Rant: Keeping in mind I have a very narrow view on yoga, what it is, and what it means to people, I’d always thought it was about being spiritual and such. You know the deal: worldly possessions, hate and greed are avoided and not practiced amongst yogi of high stature. If you have a similar view on this, I think this link here called The Money Pose is a very interesting read. The gist of it is basically the creator of Bikram Yoga aka Hot Yoga goes on and on about how baller he is, how important he is and how revered he should be in America since he was brought there by a former president. He develops his yoga style and teaches it, then, years later after his branding is established, he goes and sues practitioners (some, former students of his) to pay him money for using his name and agree to only teach his style or else stop. Not the nicest of yogi’s.

Read the rest of this entry »

Awesome! Today I spent a buttload of time trying to protect the images I’ve uploaded by sticking a watermark on them. Sure, NextGEN Gallery allows me to have watermarks but when it saves, it completely obliterates the exif meta data (holy tongue twister) which sucks because I plan to integrate the exif data viewer that came with NextGEN soon.

Edit:

So it’s been brought to my attention that I’m an asshole. Photoshop does do the following with this File > Automate > Fit Image function. Oh well, i still think the below is useful, but not for pure resizing. Colour me bad.. really bad.

Anyhow, I’m sure you all know about Photoshop Batches, and how shit they can be.. you know the fact that you can’t add any kind of conditional statement at all. For example: If it’s a landscape edit the width -> else it’s a potrait so resize the height. This is basically my issue because it wrecks my desired file sizes for my final output files for my galleries that I’ve been oh so diligently filling out. I googled around and found out that image ready has such conditional support; however, I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how to do a batch after I made the Droplet. That’s a mouthful.

Read the rest of this entry »

Since I know you’re all interested in the stupid details, I’ll take the liberty to detail some on-going changes with my site. I’ve just added some photos and integrated it with the NextGen Gallery and I must say I am thoroughly impressed. It offers a lot of cool features such as:

Read the rest of this entry »

So today, well “yesterday” if you want to be an asshole, I had to go in to work. Afterwards, Ann, Helena and I went to get shanked for dinner in the skeezy part of Vancouver: Chinatown. Just kidding, it’s not that sketchy, you just can’t cross the imaginary line between good and evil that runs through that area.

Restaurant Name: Phnom Penh
Address: 244 East Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Tel: 604-582-5777, 604-734-8898 Why do they have two?
Style: Cambodian and Vietnamese

Read the rest of this entry »