This has been a fairly eventful and mildly exhausting week, but I’m sitting here in my freshly cleaned apartment on my freshly formatted computer drinking my freshly brewed cup of tea, so I feel like my life is shifting back to order quite nicely.
Last week, in a fairly spontaneous decision, I bought a new computer. I’ve been using an aging laptop for a few years, and I felt it was time to bring my desktop back from the dead. I didn’t want to pay for another computer case, or the service charge for the store to put it together for me, so I just ordered each component and built the computer myself. Unfortunately, everything arrived last week except the CPU. I had to leave the city for a few days, so I had a half-assembled desktop waiting for me at home, calling out while I was gone. It was very hard to concentrate.
Friday morning, at the ungodly hour of 5:00am, I got in a rental van and drove to Seattle with a group of developers from work. We were there to attend the No Fluff Just Stuff Java conference. I’d never been to a software development conference before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I figured it would be a weekend of mildly interesting presentations, and that would be about it. I was very happy with the high quality of the speakers there, and the talks were very helpful. I was introduced to a few technologies I didn’t know anything about, and I learnt a lot of better programming and project management practices. I came away from the conference full of enthusiasm and as a slightly better programmer, which I wasn’t expecting at all.
On the way back from Seattle, I ditched my coworkers and went to Vancouver. A friend of mine was visiting, and she had a free ticket for The Smashing Pumpkins concert on Monday night. I was there for two days, so when we did a few touristy things: Granville Island, Stanley Park Aquarium, getting completely lost. It was a lot of fun.
The concert was great. I used to be a big Pumpkins fan in high school, but I hadn’t really listened to any of their new stuff. The two new members of the band seemed like decent musicians, but they had no stage presence at all. They just rocked back and forth and looked very uncomfortable. Also, apparently a crowd surfer died a few metres to my right during the concert, and I didn’t even notice. That’s a pretty good example of how I tend to walk through life - utterly oblivious.
When I arrived home, all the parts to my new computer were waiting here for me. It’s now together and, friends, it is glorious. Bioshock looks fantastic on it.
The last fews days, I’ve been struggling through a task at work. I’m going to finish it over this weekend. It’s something I estimated would take a day, and it’s been dragging on for a week now. Once that’s finished, I’ll really be able to relax.
Here’s a song from Zeitgeist, the new Pumpkins album. As a whole, the album is a little underwhelming. It’s decent, but it seems a little weak for a comeback album.
I’ve listened to some really great presentations today at the conference, but the most shocking thing I’ve found is how cheap a jug of American beer is when the Canadian dollar is even!
I’ll be in Seattle this weekend for a Java conference, and then off to Vancouver for the Smashing Pumpkins concert on Monday night, so there might not be too much action here in the next few days.
I ordered a new computer this week, and it just arrived today. I wanted to use my existing case, so I decided to just order the parts and put it together myself. I only had enough time tonight to clean out my old computer and mount the new motherboard, so it’s just sitting there in a pile at the moment. I am, however, typing this post on my shiny new 22″ widescreen LCD monitor!
When I ordered the computer, I didn’t know about the conference or the concert. I was originally planning on buying a lot of food on Friday night and playing games straight through until Sunday. I wasn’t even going to put pants on. I feel like there’s a universal conspiracy keeping me from my new toy.
Oh well, off to bed. In order to make it to Seattle in time, I need to get up tomorrow morning at 4:30am. I haven’t gotten up that early for two years, and I’m not really looking forward to it.
As I’m sure many of you have heard, author Robert Jordon passed away a couple days ago of Amyloidosis, a rare blood disease.
I read his Wheel of Time series to the ninth or tenth book, absolutely loved every word of the first four or five, but I eventually lost interest. I had decided to return to the series once the final book had been written, but I guess we’ll have to see if that still happens.
Jordon was working on the twelfth and final book in this epic series when he died. It’s sad when you realise he came so close to finishing what is essentially his life’s work. The first book in the series was published in 1990. That’s a long time to spend in the same fantasy. I think after spending nearly twenty years in a story, the characters must seems as alive to you as your own family. It’s unfortunate he died before he was able to bring the story to a close. It’s like passing away months before your first grandchild is born.
Before his death, Jordan stated “I’m getting out notes, so if the worst actually happens, someone could finish A Memory of Light and have it end the way I want it to end.” The decision whether to posthumously complete the book has been left to his wife Harriet and Tor Books president Tom Doherty. [via]
This seems like it would be a very difficult series to pick up for another author. There are a lot of subplots to tie up, and the readers are very in tune with the characters’ nuances after following the series for so long. I’ll still read it if it’s published. At least we’ll be able to see how he intended it to end.
He’ll certainly be missed by fantasy readers worldwide.
An interesting debate has been uploaded to Google Video, which was posted on Digg a while back, between Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton. Hitchens is the author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and Sharpton is an American Baptist minister.
When I started to watch this, I was afraid it would just turn into an arrogant shouting match, but both conducted themselves very well. They, for the most part, answered questions with well thought-out answers and took criticism and playful ribbing without becoming defensive.
The debate goes in circles a little at times with Sharpton wanting to focus the discussion on God rather than religion and Hitchens not complying. I haven’t read Hitchens’ book yet, so I can’t vouch for how valid this is, but according to Sharpton he does write about God specifically and wasn’t bringing those points up during the debate. Otherwise, I think it went fairly smoothly.
I’m an atheist, but I’m not very militant about it. I’m not a Hitler Atheist, as I heard someone refer to their coworker as once - an insult that doesn’t make sense on multiple levels. My family is technically Protestant. I say technically because we never attended church, and I believe both of my parents think of themselves as agnostic now.
Religion in my family was always a private topic. We didn’t shy away from it, as I was one of those kids that had to ask a million questions about everything around him, but what you believe and how you decide to follow those beliefs was always something personal. I was never pressured in any which way, and my parents were great at discussing religion objectively.
I definitely agree with Hitchens that religion shouldn’t be preached in schools or forced upon people. I do believe, however, that it would be great if school curriculum included a mandatory course on religion in one of the lower grades. A course that would introduce students to the major religions followed throughout the world and their teachings. So many people’s views seem spoiled by propaganda and biased news reports. Something like this, early on in kids’ lives, could help stop some of the hate brought on by ignorance. Unfortunately, a course like that could so easily be abused by an instructor with a bias.
Anyway, it’s an interested debate. If more people could discuss religion as civilly and intelligently as these two, we’d probably be better off.
I’ve embedded the video for your viewing pleasure.
A month ago, Lucasfilm Ltd registered six titles with the MPAA, and they just announced the official name for the fourth Indiana Jones installment. The other options were:
Indiana Jones and the City of Gods
Indiana Jones and the Destroyer of Worlds
Indiana Jones and the Fourth Corner of the Earth
Indiana Jones and the Lost City of Gold
Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Covenant
There were a lot of people complaining about the choice on Digg earlier today, but I quite like it. The cheesiness of the title fits in well with the rest of the series. The Temple of Doom wasn’t exactly Shakespeare. Of the titles listed, I prefer City of Gods or Lost City of Gold, but the title doesn’t really matter to me as long as the movie is decent.
I’ve been trying not to get my hopes up for this movie, but I think my struggle may be futile. Most people who know me are probably aware of my Indiana Jones obsession. When I was a kid, he was my idol. I wanted to be exactly like him when I grew up. I even planned on studying archeology once I got to university, until I learnt it didn’t involve disarming booby traps and punching Nazis. Many of the values I hold dear to this day can be attributed to those stories. My love of travel, wanting to see new places and understand different cultures, trying to learn about the past and the world around me - a lot of my interests and passions were sparked or fueled by Indiana Jones.
Even as an adult, I still love the character. He’s a multilingual scholar who travels the world, beating up baddies and sleeping with beautiful women. And he wears a wicked hat. He’s basically the perfect geek. How could you not want to be like him?
It would seem I have impossible expectations for this next movie, but I think I’ll be happy as long as they stay fairly true to the character. I recently rediscovered the Young Indiana Jones television series and really enjoyed watching it again. If I can enjoy a fifteen year old television series without getting into a huff, I should be able to relax and enjoy a new movie.
As a bit of a side note, I just noticed an adult series of Indiana Jones books listed on Amazon. I typically can’t bring myself to read anything that’s based from a film or television series, as it just seems very wrong to me, but I might make an exception in this case. Has anyone read any of these books?
I don’t want this weblog to turn into a YouTube video collection or anything, but I saw this video on Digg earlier today and really enjoyed it. These guys are great.
This Week in Review
