Aye carumba, early evening... 

Eric on decks 

Got Serato Scratch hooked up and I'm loving it. 

There was definitely a party here... 

Finally I got some party pictures dumped out of my camera. 

No shortage of ladies 

Big Gay Al himself getting emotional 

So you think I'm funny

Check this out (press play)


Here's the rest of them.

And this site should waste a few hours of your life.

405

I can't believe it, this is my 405th post!!

Holy crap, what a year I'm having. Where do I even begin?

Snowboarding
I've been snowboarding like the world is running out of snow. Man has it ever been fun. We've got a great crew up at Mt. Garceau and the snow is crazy good up there for some inexplicable reason while it's crap everywhere else. I'm riding better and faster than ever and starting to throw down 360s - sloppy but fun. Besides just riding, the bar scene has been a riot too, the crew has been awesome and it's like an endless group hug after a long afternoon of hucking and flying.

Parties
Whoah! Since my birthday last November, it's been an endless string of bro-ing down with old mates. Some kids turning 30, some turning 40, all of them having monster parties. Which brings me to my party last weekend. God damn, what a party. Lets see, all the guys I invited didn't show up but all of the girls and their girlfriends did!! Whoaaaah - that's a party. A few weeks before, I hosted another birthday party for about 15 people and turned up the soundsystem to 50%. That's louder than most nightclubs. Last weekend, it was Big Gay Al's birthday and I called my neighbors in advance to let them know things were getting loud. They didn't hear the previous party so this time the sound went up to 65% with about 45 peeps mostly chiquitas. I can tell you that there was some dancing and ummm well I can't say much more :) Last night at Misto was more of the same.

Music
With all these parties, I've been DJ'ing again so I'm stoked about buying records and getting back into the groove. Kano @ Moog and Jacob @ DNA are my new unofficial sponsors. Maybe it's the other way around? I'll be hooking up my studio again and hooking up Serato Scratch soon. Stoked.

Work
Damn, I'm working hard and smart these days, hope I can keep up this pace.


Ahhh, I love life when the volume's turned up. Here comes the summer!

1977

Anybody remember 1977? Here's a good chuckle courtesy of the CBC.

Here's the thing

If you're going to take pictures of strippers with your camera, don't use your girlfriends phone.

Inna disko

Whooah what a party... Too bad I left my camera up north.

Here, this should keep you amused for now.

Even better, try this.

Check this out

I haven't listen to MC Hammer for a while so this one was a cool find.

This dude is doing some crazy cool math to put together some cool software that I can't even describe. Watch this video to see what I mean.

Sven is a pretty funny dude so it's quite entertaining.
Get the software here.


Went for a few drinks last night and ended up with a whole whack of chiquitas and pro snowboarders including JF Pelchat and the quicksilver crew.
On that note, there's a surprise party with the Sessions/Hyperlite/424/Misto crew at my place on Saturday nite, just call me or show up at 8. Should be off the hook. My kidneys are scared.

Wuzz nu

I am really glad I took a break from snowboarding for half a decade because I'm enjoying it more than ever these days. I guess having a wicked crew to ride with has a lot to do with it too. I would think that that's the case with everything right?

Well spring is springing today so I'm starting to get amped about getting the dirt bike out next month.

What else? I've always wondered why hippies/eco-protesters didn't just buy out their issues. Being a protestor in the first world just doesn't cut it if you don't put your money where your placard is. This dude is on the right track, my hat off to him. Although the hippies might find some reason to take offense with his approach, I'm all for it. In fact I think that there should be an eco-exchange where first world individuals/collectives can bid on second and third world problems with sustainable ways to fix them. The thing that this fellow above didn't do is replace the incomes of the poor saps who cut and haul that wood, but it's a damn good start.

My blog was down for a while last week because of a flakey storage unit at blogspot. For a while I thought it was gone for good. To some extent, I was almost relieved. I'm not sure who is out there but it's kind of weird position to be in having people peering into your life. I run into people I haven't seen all the time who know what I'm up to. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing yet (?)

What I'd like to know is

Why haven't all of you who said you'd start a blog not started yet?

It really is later than you think

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as you wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think

Top ten this month

Wuzzin my ears:

1 Joy Division - Wilderness
2 Avenged Sevenfold - Unholy Confessions
3 Madlib - Bully's Hit
4 Death Cab For Cutie - Crooked Teeth
5 Super Furry Animals - The International Language Of Screaming
6 Smith & Mighty - Same
7 Cari Lekebusch - Motions of Energy
8 FSOL - When others cry
9 Stone Roses - This is the one
10 ILS - 6 Space
11 Verbrilli Sound - Skyplates
11 Jah Wobble/SOconner - Visions of you

(you didn't think I'd actually leave it at 10?)

Be cool fool

Man, I love the springtime. Spent the weekend in the sunshine (yeah even Sunday) snowboarding, hot-tubbing and working hard on a hangover that never came. I wish I had more to say besides "you shoulda been there". Life is good. over and out amigos.

Wicked sidewalk art

Check this out






Tequila weekend coming right up. See you later kids.

Berrykiller

Here's my next phone:




The Samsung sgh i320, WMobile 5, SD slot for lotsa music, nice and small and no crackberry fees.

Still banging

Misto Paul works the wax here, apparently a spontaneous party broke out at my place w/Paul, Gabo and I on decks.

On the road again

Yippee, going to see my lizard friends in Costa Rica again this May!! Whoo hoo. 

Reverend Dave

Hey, isn't that Reverend Dave of the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Pleasure and Chaos? 

Woe is me

Those of you that know me probably know that my biggest ambition is not to be Donald Trumps bitch but rather to build the worlds most ginormous catapult/trebuchet.

I'd like to build a smaller one too, to throw people into the lake. To do that and not kill them, I'm going to need this. Here's a video.

A full sized trebuchet generates 20-30Gs so that would prolly kill you in a few dozen milliseconds. I'm figuring 5-10Gs is the limit, even then you might get a black eye or two.

How cool is that?

The Don

Dondald Trump is a serious jackass but I have to say that I have gotten to really like the Apprentice. I like it because it's dumb. The last season pitted a fellow who had five degrees and a couple of businesses against a journalist. It just doesn't seem like this dude (besides being a creep) had any business even being in this competition. Here we go again, this season seems to be mostly millionaires, why the hell aren't they at home ramping up their own businesses?

The one lesson that keeps coming through in this competition is that for the most part these guys don't know how and when to shut up.

Anywez, Mark Cuban has a great offer for the Don.

How I spent my winter. Look closely and you'll see Mt. Tremblant, the second peak on the right. 

Gabo and Mimi on top of the world 

The fish

Abe Vigoda just turned 85.

Check this out

This fellow made QT VR movies of New Orleans after Katrina from a helicopter.

If you have been in hiding for the last decade and don't know how to use QTVR, use your mouse on the move to scroll around and zoom in/out. Oh yeah, wait for it to load.

Fred Phelps is a dick

Who is this guy you might ask? This fellow is the head of a Kansas based church that used to picket AIDs victims funerals claiming that God was seeking revenge on gays (godhatesfags.com, godhatesamerica.com). These days this nutcase and his church are picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq claiming that IEDs are Gods instrument to punish a country that harbours homosexuals. His protesters carry signs thanking God for IEDs.

They picketed Coretta Scott King's funeral.
The Westboro Baptist Church pickets Matthew Shepard's funeral.
They picketed Bill Clinton's moms funeral.

How sad is that?

It's heartening to read that a bunch of bikers follows them around and squelches out their nutball protests.

Something in your eye

Ever had an itchy eyeball?

US Parity

A couple of years ago a Canadian dollar was at around 65 cents US. Today it's at about 87 cents. Some economists are saying that it looks like it's going to be even soon.

Why? Well first off, our economy is doing great, exports of oil and natural gas are doing even better and finally, the most important factor; George Jr. keeps screwing up:


The ballooning US national debt clock
Out of control trade deficit
Endless military spending hikes

Saint Steve

Do you remember when the industry ganged up on Microsoft for anti-competitive practices? Most of the claims were due to the extensive use of "tying", like tying the purchase of a new computer to the purchase of Windows, tying a MS browser to the operating system, tying the media player to the OS etc...

Well it looks like Saint Steve is going to get his soon enough for tying the his music to his devices and locking out third party technology.

It's about ferking time.

Honda FCX

If the Honda FCX hydrogen powered car actually looks like this when it goes into production then I want one. Looks kinda like a lambo, look how short the nose is.


Nice cheeks too:


Check out this lambo enzo-killer concept:

WTF???

I just can't believe that there are people dying out there because of some stupid cartoons.

I didn't even remotely get it until I read some fellow comparing it to jokes about the holocaust. On one hand, if the Washington Post put out a special issue dedicated to jokes about the holocaust, you'd be sure that there'd be a massive outcry.

On the other hand, I seriously doubt that there would be people burning down embassies and calling for death to all Americans. It's a shame because the guys that get the biggest shaft are the majority moderate Muslims who will be found guilty by association.

For the record, I think that protesters in democracies who call for violence as we have seen should be jailed. Most charter of rights allow for freedom of speech but hold speakers accountable for their content.

Here's what our charter has to say about freedom of expression:

Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
a) freedom of conscience and religion;
b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
d) freedom of association.

Here's what our criminal code has to say about hate crimes:

R.S., c. 11(1st Supp.), s. 1.

Public incitement of hatred
319. (1) Every one who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty of

(a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or

(b) an offence punishable on summary conviction.

Wilful promotion of hatred
(2) Every one who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group is guilty of

(a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or

(b) an offence punishable on summary conviction

So some Muslims might counter that those cartoons incite hatred and violence. I've seen them, I just think they're lame and weak and frankly not even remotely offensive compared to anything you'd see on South Park.

Here's Mohammad and Jesus from "The Super Best Friends" epsiode


And for the record, Mohammed has been portrayed many times in history by Muslims and Infidels alike.

Free CRT monitors

Yep, we've got a couple of 17" and one or two 15" CRTs that are collecting dust here and I can't even give them away to anybody here 'cuz we're all LCD snobs now.

Need a spare XGA monitor? Drop me an email and come and pick it up. Sometime next week they're all going to the Salvation Army if nobody claims them.

Another weekend

Whoah, what a weekend. All that rain that fell in town dropped as wet snow up north. Made for some fun snowboarding and a really nice break from the washed out - thawed doggie doodoo strewn streets of YUL.

My buddy Marc was the victim of a surprise party on Sat. nite. Poor fellow walked into his den in his underwear into a crowd of 40 peeps. Lotsa fun from what I remember. Sorry, no pics (which is probably a good thing).

This is freaking cool

Ever been ice fishing in Quebec?

Well neither have I, but if you do go, there is a chance that you might catch a 600 pound shark.

You get what you pay for

On one hand, the Danish newspaper that printed those cartoons that have caused this new uproar by Muslims all over the world, clearly was meant to provoke a strong and violent response. On the other, it did exactly what it was supposed to do, root out fanaticism. I think that they got what they wanted.

I definitely don't think that it's a good idea to insult other people's religions or is it especially smart to provoke sensitive issues like that but I think what they did was interesting but stupid (despite their apologies).

This guy seems to make the most sense:

"The protests in the Middle East have proven that the cartoonist was right," said Tarek Fatah, a director of the Muslim Canadian Congress.

"It's falling straight into that trap of being depicted as a violent people and proving the point that, yes, we are."

Then again, this set of cartoons by Byorn Davis is far more offensive.

Idiot

Ok, so the last guy had questionable judgement.

This guy is definitely an idiot:



Courtesy of the smoking gun.

(anybody noticed that I finally spelled definitely write :) (sic)

Lucky Diamond Rich

This fellow named Lucky Diamond Rich had every inch of his body tattooed in solid black. He didn't expect to join another race but much to his surprise, society now treats him like a negro.

There was a movie made in the 70's I think called watermelon man and a book called black like me that dealt with this topic but this situation is different and particularly interesting because his predicament is irreversible.



He's got quite a story to tell over here at needled.

Catch of the day

And now for something mildly amusing. How have you lived so long without a chocolate thong?



For her and him courtesy of coolhunting.

Corretta Scott King died today

She was Martin Luther King's wife. Read about it here.

File this under must have

Ten bucks buys you a self lighting shot glass. Whack it on the table to turn it on and whack it again to turn it off. A single battery lasts 35 gallons or roughly two weeks in summer if you hang out with big gay Al.

Explain me this

Doesn't this seem kind of weird to you:

Bernard Shapiro (the federal ethics commissioner) slapped conservative MP Gurmant Grewal and the conservative party on the wrists for unethical behaviour but he waited until after the election to release his report.

Meanwhile the RCMP which rarely holds press conferences, held a press conference in the middle of the election to announce that they are investigating liberal MP Ralph Goodale. Well that's a little odd, what's stranger is that they hadn't collected any evidence and hadn't been handed any proof, they based their investigation on a hearsay complaint by NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis. Wait a sec, don't they usually collect evidence before they start an criminal investigation?

Here's the weirdest part, the spike in trading was a massive sell-off in income trusts because they (alleged insiders) thought Goodale would raise the taxes on income trusts. He did the opposite, he lowered dividend taxes on regular companies and didn't touch the trusts. So in turn everybody that rushed out to sell their income trusts got screwed. If there was a leak, there would be no market action at all. Whoever had inside information, really had it all wrong.

It's unbelievable how the media completely missed this detail that completely reframes the whole situation. Something stinks here.

It's pretty clear that ethics are applied fast and loose within all areas of authority. It's a shame because this kind of stuff just makes it harder to convince people to vote in the first place.

Member of parliament joke

I used some artistic liberty and reworked a monkey joke a bit:

A guy walks into a bar with his member of parliament. He orders a drink and while he's drinking it the MP runs around all over the place. The MP grabs some olives off the bar and eats them, then grabs some sliced limes and eats them, then jumps up on the pool table, grabs the cue ball, sticks it in his mouth and swallows it whole while reciting his ode to Margret Thatcher.

The bartender screams at the guy, "Did you see what your MP just did?"

The guy says, "No, what?" "He just ate the cue ball off my pool table, whole!", says the bartender. "Yeah, that doesn't surprise me," replied the patron. "He eats everything in sight, the little right wing bastard. I'll pay for the cue ball and stuff." He finishes his drink, pays his bill, and leaves.

Two weeks later he's in the bar again, and he has his MP with him. He orders a drink and the MP starts running around the bar again screaming about Ronald Reagan. While the man is drinking his drink, the member of parliament finds a maraschino cherry on the bar. He grabs it, sticks it up his ass, pulls it out, and eats it.

The bartender is disgusted. "Did you see what your member of parliament did now?", he asks. "Now what?", responds the patron. "Well, he stuck a maraschino cherry up his ass, then pulled it out and ate it!" says the barkeeper.

"Yeah, that doesn't surprise me," replied the patron. "He still eats everything in sight, but ever since he swallowed that damn cue ball he measures everything first!"

It's your right

If you are Canadian and didn't vote today, you should be ashamed.

Off topic

Do you have to buy a present for somebody who has everything?

Consider one of these:



Or maybe something like this:



This is cool:



But this is way cooler:



And words just can't describe how cool this is:



And finally for the absolutely coolest and most dangerous toy that you have ever seen:



I've always wanted a class IIIb laser that could burn a hole on the surface of the moon.

whaa?

Dual head unit with MP3 reader

As some of you know I have been working on getting a car/boat MP3 sound system up and running for the past year with some success.

I have this Rockford Fosgate Omnifi with a 20GB hard drive and a Clarion marine head unit.

To cut a long story short, the combo sucks:

- Clarion buzzes constantly with and without the omnifi
- Omnifi reboots every time I stop and start the boat, takes a minute to come back
- Doesn't remember it's settings after a reboot
- Takes a dozen keypresses to do ANYTHING at all

And finally the worst offense:
- ONLY TEN FERKING PLAYLISTS MAXIMUM!!!

How the hell can you have 5000 songs and only 10 playlists? Who is the genius product manager that figured this one out?

Luckily Dual has a head unit and adapter coming soon that fully controls "plays for sure" windows media/mp3 devices:



300 bucks total and the Creative zen Xtra 60GB is going for under 300 bucks these days. Sure I could get an iPod and some kind of adapter but the integration is terrible and I refuse to buy into AAC.

If Microsoft discontinues development of WM9, it doesn't matter so much because the codec source code is out there and the chips are licensed to hundreds of OEMs. If Apple pulls the plug on iTunes or decides to get tyrannical about it, there is pretty much sweet FA that you can do because it's sole sourced. Funny how nobody is giving Apple & Google the same scrutiny that IBM & Microsoft has had.

Just wait a bit until the sheep realize they are being led off the cliff. Usually by then its too late.

My spelling

Yeah, I know my spelling sucks. The only thing that sucks worse is my handwriting.

Today in history

Thirty years ago today, the United States misplaced a hydrogen bomb and dropped a couple of others on farms in Spain, now home to a couple of scenic craters.

The fact is

Let me tell you something, never trust anybody who starts a sentence with "The fact is". For that matter put "make no mistake" into the same category.

"The fact is, mono-skis should be banned."
"Make no mistake, I only lie when my lips are moving."

The fact is that we keep seeing these politicians bullshit like the world supply of bullshit is going to run out and make no mistake that it most definately is completely fabricated bullshit.

Cases in point:

Steven Harper says that the Liberals plundered taxes and mismanaged the economy. Hold on, we have the lowest unemployment in 30 years, we're the strongest G8 economy, our debt/GDP ratio is under 40% and falling, our personal tax to earnings ratio is less than it's been in decades and everybody is doing well. The fact is that Steven is full of shit.

Paul Martin says that he had nothing to do with any of the current or past scandals. Make no mistake, a finance minister who doesn't know where a quarter of a billion dollars went during his watch is either an idiot or a liar. The fact is, this guy acts like a bumbling accountant.

Make no mistake that the fact is that the real truth does not need to be proceeded with three hollow words.

The fact is that opinions and lies are not substitutes for the truth even when claimed to be facts spoken in serious tones while wagging fingers at onlooking cameras.

On the subject of posts

So I have gone over 10,000 page views, whoo hoo. There was some anonymous person who posted and since he/she didn't leave a name, I can't get a prize out to them. I'll keep extending it every increment of 100 until somebody gets it so go ahead and post and the same rules apply.

On the subject of snow

Damn, the rain washed away a lot of snow even up north. That puts a damper on snowboarding for a while.

Other stuff

Check out the Lamborghini Muira concept car:



I just got one of these for a project and I am totally infatuated with it:

Abe Vigoda is still alive

Yes he is, and happy new year to all of you. This year maybe some of you will actually post something so I don't feel like such a retard talking to myself. Yeah that means you.

Post a reply before I hit 10,000 and the person who posted a reply before 10,000 who is the first to post a reply after 10,000 will get a special limited edition Sliq tuque. Not that I expect anybody to actually post or anything.

Back to blogging, it's been snowing something fierce up in St. Donat so the local yahoos and I have been riding powder every weekend and back to our regular winter routine. My holidays went pretty well, saw the folks in Toronto for a couple of days, partied with some buddies in town and then went up north for a long weekend of total mayhem. Sometimes you just gotta shake the bugs out if you know what I mean.

I kept hearing "Stop it, you're only encouraging him" over and over. Maybe it's a sign. Then again, sounds normal.

BTW: I love my Lib Tech Magne Traction, ugliest board I ever had but definately the most functional. Lots of stunned faces when they realize what it is.

What else do you want to know? Reverend Dave of the Church of our Lady of Perpetual Pleasure and Anarchy hung out for a while over the holidays and got a bit of skiing/snowboarding and drinking done before heading back to his ministry. It's great to see some old faces looking a little cross eyed.

I spent a day in Halifax last week, got to see the inside of an airplane, the airport, a hotel, a conference room and then the airport again. Can't wait to do it again (sark).

It seems like I never have enough time to do everything I want to do, which is not so bad because for the most part everything that is filling up my schedule is pretty killer stuff, just would like to do a lot more of it.

My beloved Rio Carbon has been appropriated by my GF so I am music-less until I find my next gadget. I'm leaning towards the Sony losenges.

On XBOX 360

Oh yeah, been XBOX'ing a bit recently. The 360 games are absurdly detailed at 1080i.

Here's my picks

DOA4 - WHOAH, lots more jiggly boobage kicking the crap out of each other. It's way faster and way more responsive and in turn harder than DOA3.

GT4 - Love that Murcielago, makes me get a little dizzy playing for more than half an hour.

Kameo - The GF is deep in this one, it's got really mighty graphics, every single blade of grass in the field is nicely rendered as are the thousands of trolls battling you. Kind of scary actually for a first generation game.

Perfect Dark/Quake 4 - Didn't get too much out of these yet, still running around in the dark shooting at nothing in particular.