August 29, 2001

Vacation over!  Ick!

I went back to work last week.  No matter how long or short the vacation may be, it sucks going back to work.  As expected, I was in hot demand.  But contrary to the work week before my vacation, this week was just slightly above average and very much survivable.  There's also a scheduled Labour Day holiday coming up next week where I can get some more time off.

But it ain't rest I'll be getting at work!  We're almost done converting the bulk of the AWSS, our main software package, from OS/2 to Windows NT.  If anything, the conversion work has been a real eye opener.  It's not until you perform such a job that you realize just how huge your software package has become over the years.  And even if we're almost done with the conversion, there will still be something left to do for months to come.  This is not necessarily due to anything out of the ordinary in the conversion process, but more due to the extra functionality now available to the software package itself.  Although OS/2 has proven to be a highly reliable operating system, it has not evolved one bit in years and has always been limited in the number of features available to third-party software packages.  In the meantime, Windows continues to add more and more features to their different operating systems to the point where many key features are universally accessible to any application that may need them without the need to figure out the exact functionality of the device itself.  So what do you expect us to do?  Stay with a dying operating system?  Or move on to an operating system that continues to grow?

Of course, our software package will exploit the Windows features to the fullest when necessary.  But man!  There's so much work to do just to convert everything!  Whew!

New feature

I've built a new section which will contain my ongoing observations of the satellite industry.  There are many observations, some already well known by many, others that might not have been noticed in the past.  If you're interested in obtaining a satellite dish in the future, this new section may interest you.

Have a good week!  Or two!  I'm getting lazy with my updates!

August 12, 2001.

Code Red!  Code Red!

While observing the propagation of the Code Red worm these last couple of weeks, I've noticed that the majority of "experts" on the Internet and in the news media have absolutely no idea what Internet security is all about.

Before the initial attack, many "experts" stated that the attack will not be as bad as it seems.  When the worm didn't attack as many Web servers as predicted, the news media stated that the attack is over and was as eventful as the Y2K bug.  However, only two weeks later, we are now being swamped by various Code Red type attacks from all over the world.  The systems reboot and program patch that network administrators should have applied to their systems were not fully implemented, and now we're being swamped by a bunch of worms trying to break into our systems by any means possible.

A note to these various "experts" out there.  Unless you already have a high level of accuracy in your predictions, or your name happens to be Steve Gibson, don't try to figure out how a worm or virus will behave on the Internet.  You'll just end up looking like an idiot when it's realized just how far off your prediction turns out to be.

Squatters Haven

What do you do if you're poor and homeless, and there's not enough low cost housing in the city?  You hijack a building!

That's what a group of young people have done recently.  They occupied a vacant building in the Overdale neighbourhood in downtown Montreal.  With the help of support groups and a few anarchists, the young people were occupying the building in order to protest the lack of public housing in Montreal and how some developers raze perfectly acceptable existing housing in order to develop the land for other purposes.  In the case of the Overdale project, many buildings were torn down and never rebuilt.  All that was built over the razed buildings was a parking lot.

With only one building remaining in the area, the squatters occupied it and refused to leave.  Later on, the owner of the building, after being informed on what was going on, asked the police to rid his building of the trespassers.  The mayor and the police were worried about what would happen if the "stormtroopers" moved in to clear the area, so the city offered to move the squatters to an unoccupied city owned building, thereby avoiding any possible violent incident and circumventing the normal process of acquiring public housing.

In fact, eight thousand people are still waiting for public housing which includes single families and handicapped people.  So you can imagine how they feel seeing a bunch of squatters use alternate tactics in order to jump the queue and get free housing.

What started out as a way to defuse an explosive situation ended up creating another situation.  If the governments were serious in resolving the lack of public housing years ago, this particular situation may never have occurred.

The Pepsi Forum

I visited a new place called The Pepsi Forum, a family amusement center built inside the old Montreal Forum where the Montreal Canadiens hockey team used to play.  The best way to describe this place is a glitzy multiplex, arcade, bowling alley and family restaurant.

I wasn't impressed.

The video game arcade is very similar to the excess found in many upscale Las Vegas arcades, and the bowling alley is heavily decorated with video screens and plenty of neon lighting.  I haven't seen the theater since I don't go to theaters anymore, but it's my guess that the projection and sound systems are all out of whack by now.  As for the restaurant, I didn't try it out since the rest of the place gave me the impression the food may be made of plastic.

I went there one Sunday afternoon and noticed how deserted the place seemed to be.  You'd think the weekend would be the perfect time to see a bit of a crowd, but that simply wasn't the case.  If you needed to go there at the last minute, you'd have no problems getting inside.

We have satellite!

Our condo building finally had it's Bell ExpressVu digital satellite service installed this week!  The installers spent two days during the heat wave laying out a cable from the roof to the utility room in the basement, then connecting it to the distribution network.  As soon as the last of the technical glitches are resolved (a defective power supply and a bad splitter need to be replaced), it won't be long before other people in the building will acquire the service.  In fact, a few are already eagerly awaiting to be connected.

The installers had to work hard in getting the system to function properly for my dwelling alone, but we did learn a lot on what to expect in the other units.  We first had to locate the original cable line; we had to empty a few closets in order to find the cable connection which I've never used.  Then the installers had to resolve the communications glitches between the basement and my apartment and fine-tune the system.  Now the system has reached a level of stability which confirms that just about anyone in the building can get reliable satellite service once the defective components have been replaced.  Aside from the rare signal loss during excessively windy days and one brief rain fade situation in the last few days, the system is highly stable and responsive.

Almost every channel is crystal clear with no static whatsoever and highly consistent colour and picture levels.  The only bad channel in the line-up seems to be victim of some kind of radio interference from the signal source.  Many channels are at an "acceptable" level of resolution while the rest show some outstanding detail at times.  Of course, these results can vary widely depending on the MPEG-2 compression level, the picture quality of the show itself, and the quality of the signal being transmitted by the originating station.  Overall the signal received from Bell ExpressVu's satellite is much better than what I've ever seen on analog cable which tends to be highly unstable no matter the service provider, the quality of the equipment or exactly where you live.  I've even heard complaints from all over North America that "digital cable" is nothing more than a digitized version of the analog cable signals.  Instead of analog garbage, you now have digital garbage.

The channel offerings from the local cable company Vidéotron can't even compete with what Bell ExpressVu has to offer.  Not only do we get just about every channel legally available in Canada (triple-digit channel numbers!), we also get channels from all the other time zones.  This is what's called "time shifting" where network feeds from across the country are all carried by the service provider, including the local channels which, unlike the United States satellite services, are available with no restrictions.  The biggest advantage of this system is that if you miss your favourite show in one time zone or you want to see it before it's broadcast in your own time zone, just switch to the network feed coming from another time zone.  For a bit more per month, you can also get all the French Canadian and American local channels as well.

Any weaknesses?  Yes there are.  First of all, even though the model 2700 satellite receiver offers many useful features with a minimum of useless bells and whistles, it takes almost a couple of seconds to switch from one channel to another.  If it wasn't for the Browse feature where you can view show titles before switching over to another channel, channel surfing would become a tedious chore.  I'll have to look into getting a more responsive receiver later on, possibly the new model 3100 coming out later in the month which is suppose to be able to change channels as fast as you can think.

The second weakness has nothing to do with Bell ExpressVu itself.  The Game Show network seems to play the same six game shows each and every day; Star Trek reruns of every generation are rampant especially on The Spece Channel; Global Prime seems to be stuck in a perpetual M*A*S*H time loop; the Comedy Network line-up consists of SCTV, Air Farce, SNL and Open Mike reruns; all the news shows now use these information-loaded split-screens that are so overloaded with information that you need to record the show just to catch up to all the text; most of the SportsNet channels have an unhealthy obsession with golf; and all the movie channels broadcast the vast majority of their movies in pan & scan and never in their original aspect ratio.

The third weakness?  Bugs!  I'm talking about the station bugs in the corner of the screen!  Most Canadian stations are discrete with their bugs, using a small translucent logo that doesn't create a "burn-in" effect on the TV screen.  But American stations seem to go out of their way in using huge, highly contrasted logos that will burn into your screen after six months.  Even when they use a translucent bug instead of a visible one, they normally put it so far away from the corner of the screen that it seems to be in the middle of the screen.  In TV technical terms, the bug is placed in the corner of the "Safe Title" screen area instead of the preferred "Safe Action" area.

But all is not doom and gloom in Satellite TV Land.  I've finally watched two shows I've heard of in the past: "Iron Chef" and "Battlebots".  "Battlebots" is basically a "fight to the death" between robots, while "Iron Chef" is a Japanese "fight to the culinary death" cooking show between a challenger and one among three well established "Iron Chefs".  The robots leave you cheering while they tear each other apart, and the chefs leave you breathless during their mad dash to finish the meals!  

Another show that immediately attracted my attention is the British show "Junkyard Wars" presented on TLC.  This is a "challenge" show where two teams must build and operate a specific machine out of parts found inside a junkyard.  And the machines aren't simple!  The two shows I've seen involved building a floating firefighting rig complete with a high pressure hose, and building drag racers.  In both cases, plenty of ingenuity had to be used to build these fully functional machines within the ten hour time limit.  I love these type of shows because you need as much brains as brawns in order to win the competition.  It's much better than those reality shows that rely mostly on ego.

By the time the promotional run is over, I'll be chopping off a lot of network choices from my subscription, especially the channels with the most offensive bugs and lamest shows.  The remaining channel choices will still be better than the offerings from the cable company, and at a lesser cost than cable.  And no more interference or ghosting!

What about new reviews?

New reviews will be suspended until further notice.  I've got so many channels to choose on the satellite dish that I'll be neglecting my DVD viewing for quite a while.  There's also a serious lack of movies to choose from.

So have a good week!  Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a TON of TV shows to watch!  He he he!

July 23, 2001

Olympics, Olympics, Olympics!

First Toronto loses to Beijing, Canada's IOC member Richard Pound arrives in third place in the run for the IOC's presidency to Euro trash and a lesser-known corrupt member, then it's the 25th anniversary of Montreal's Olympics and people can't stop reminiscing about it -- although they quickly forget that the bloody Olympic stadium wasn't even finished on time for the games!

Enough already!  It's such a slow news week that the only subject matter that interests the Canadian news media is the bloody Olympics!  Please!  Move on to another subject!

Billions and billions -- of dollars and nothing works!

The International Space Station (I call it the I.S.S. Alpha) is having teething problems.  Much of the equipment isn't working properly, the astronauts found out the hard way that a lost bar of soap is almost impossible to find in zero gravity, they've been recycling their -- ick -- underwear in case they have to stay up there a little longer, the CO2 scrubbers located just beside the bunks make a horrendous noise every ten minutes, and the screen on the DVD player is too small to actually see anything in detail!  The problems with the new Canadarm were just the tip of the iceberg!

There's not much use complaining about these problems since even the software used to record the complaints has also broken down.  Maybe they should have called the space station "Beta" as in Beta version!  Or even better, "Microsoft"!

Can you do a Ctrl-Alt-Del on a space station?

Phantom Edit Phenomena (for me that is)

My review of "Star Wars: The Phantom Edit" has been a huge success.  In less than a week the review has received over three hundred hits!  And this review isn't even for a DVD!

Much of the feedback was highly positive.  Most agreed with my assessment of the movie and even considered it very much their feelings on the original movie itself.  One person pointed out that it was pointless writing a review of the picture and sound quality, but I wanted to give people who have never seen an MPEG-1 transfer an idea on how they compare with a decent DVD transfer.  A couple of people did hate the review altogether, but no more than that.

The most common question I was asked was "Where can I find a copy of the movie?"  To reveal that publicly may be a violation of Geocities' regulations.  So e-mail me for the instructions on how to find it and I'll give you all the information you need!

DVD Sales Status

If you're wondering when there will be any new DVDs for sale, please proceed to the "For Sale" page for all the latest news.

A new review!

Yes, the Unbreakable review is finally posted.  I was so busy with my real life that I didn't have much time for my virtual life.

Right now, I can hear both my sisters laughing their heads off at that last paragraph.  "What real life?  You watch movies all the time!  Get out of the house!  Meet some real people for a change!"

All right!  All right!  One of these days, I'll do just that.  I'm just not quite ready yet.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have in my hands an old Marilyn Monroe movie I would like to enjoy.  He he he!

Enjoy the weather while it's not too wet!

July 8, 2001

Mordecai Richler, 1931-2001

Last week, Canada lost one of it's most colourful writers.  Mordecai Richler died on July 3rd following a long battle with cancer.  He was only seventy years old, and still as feisty and lucid as ever, even buying eight ribbons for his Smith-Corona typewriter only a couple of weeks ago for the project he had in mind.

Richler was an author, a journalist and a commentator.  He even wrote three children's books.  Highly prolific and controversial, some of his popular subjects included stories of life as a young Jewish lad living on St-Urbain street in Montreal, and commentaries on how Quebec nationalists can properly attempt to remove their heads from their asses.  In both cases, his writings made some people laugh, and other people very angry.

He was a production of English Quebec society who insisted in living out his life doing what he loved to do.  And he did it with skill, humour and professionalism.  Along with Nick Auf De Maur, Mordecai Richler will be greatly missed.

Second Cup bomber found guilty

Rhéal Mathieu has been found guilty and sentenced to six months in jail on top of the nine months he already served for attempting to torch a few Second Cup outlets with Molotov cocktails because the coffee chain has an English company name.

For those unfamiliar with Quebec politics, the protection of the French language is a serious subject for many, practically an obsession within the provincial government itself.  Occasional covert groups take this even further and decide to directly attack the major symbols of English corporate culture.

But before you think of Montreal as a bastion of terrorist acts, one of Mathieu's Molotov cocktails was put out with nothing more than a glass of water.  As dangerous as one of those fire bombs can be, Mathieu didn't do a very good job of setting them up properly in the first place.  As for the sentence, despite the fact Mathieu's plan didn't work out as he hoped for, just the act should have been taken much more seriously.  A fifteen month sentence for expressing an opinion with a violent act just doesn't seem enough.  And this guy was already convicted of manslaughter while he was a member of the FLQ in the late sixties.

Fire reported at seven McDonald's restaurants

On another angle, the McDonald's on Peel street in downtown Montreal was closed a couple of weeks ago -- two months before the scheduled closing.  The employees have previously won union accreditation a few months ago.  Soon after, the owner indicated his intention to close the restaurant citing an increase in rent and the loss of profitability as the main reason for the closure.  Neither the employees or their union believes any of this.

Then suddenly this weekend, seven local McDonald's restaurants were hit with a wave of trash bin fires within the same half-hour period.  No one was injured, damages were light and no suspects were captured.  As of now, no one has claimed responsibility for the action.  Whoever decided to go after the fast food giant (i.e. "junk food" giant) and their motives for doing so remain a mystery.

The biggest problem is that there are not one, but many known groups of people that could be targeting the restaurant chain such as union sympathizers, members of Mathieu's group, or even an extremist environmental group out to disrupt the business of a corporate giant.

The police are still investigating the matter.

Stockwell Day almost out

Resignation demands just keep piling up at the Canadian Alliance party headquarters.  For the last month, Parliament's Loyal Opposition has been more busy being opposed to their own leader than to the Liberal government.  Already there are over twelve dissenting opinions, enough to achieve official party status if they wish it.  And now almost the entire executive committee is ready to call for his resignation.

Do you know what's weird about all of this?  The people who are demanding his resignation are the same people who elected him in the first place!  The last time there was this much backstabbing was when John Turner was the leader of the Liberal party!  Cartoonists were busy drawing him with a bunch of knives protruding not from his back, but from his chest!  Liberal party members didn't bother hiding themselves when demanding their leader to step down.  Today, Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day is suffering the same fate, slowly being shunned by his own party members.

If the Canadian Alliance was the party in power, such an action could be considered a "coup d'état".  In Canada, this is not something you see every day.

The Phantom Edit review feedback

I'm impressed!  Ever since I mentioned my "Phantom Edit" review on a few Web sites last week, the review has been hit over 300 times!  And this was accomplished with very limited advertising!  This number of hits may not seem like much when compared with other Web sites, but this is the greatest number of hits any review on my site has ever received.  And it's not even an official DVD release!

I've also noticed that quite a few of you have been checking out a few of my other reviews, most notably the DVD review of "Caligula".  Does this mean that most "Star Wars" fans have this craving for cheesy Roman orgies?  Eeek!

Review status

As previously mentioned, the "Unbreakable" review is on it's way.  However, it's important to mention right away that the Canadian distribution of the DVD is missing the two Alex Ross illustrations.  If you bought the DVD and it's missing the illustrations, call Buena Vista at (800) 477-2811 and they will mail you replacements free of charge.

Currently there aren't any other reviews scheduled in the near future, but I've already been approached to do a review of the new Akira DVD Special Edition "Tin" release once it shows up in stores at the end of the month.  I'm also toying with the idea of reviewing the Trigun anime series once I've watched the final four episodes which I'm expecting any time now.

On a related subject, I would like to suggest that Canadians avoid buying certain anime DVD releases in Canada and purchase them from the United States instead.  The Trigun discs mentioned earlier cost almost double in price here in Canada than they cost in the United States.  There are some releases that cost comparably the same here in Canada as in the States, but they are exception to the rule.  Until Canadian anime distributors finally decide to become competitive and sell their discs at or below the competitive street price of $30 Canadian per title, avoid them like the plague.

So save your money and let's hope the weather stops acting as crazy as it does now.  It's July -- and it's actually cold now!  What happened to the sweltering summer weather?

June 18, 2001

I had a lack of time on my hands, but this weekend seems to be available to catch up on some writing.

"Ding Dong!  The Witch Is Dead!"

Timothy McVeigh was "pickled" last week.  He was executed for his part in the Oklahoma City bombing back in 1995.  American opinion on the execution was very mixed while the Europeans were "dead against it".  In Canada, the opinion is pretty much neutral which pretty much matches the personality of most Canadians.  And what do I think of all of this?

I'm not quite sure.

First of all, what the United States does with it's prisoners is not really my business.  But if Canada still had the Death penalty, I figure I'd be against the whole thing.  First of all, executions are really expensive, often costing more than it would cost to imprison a mass murderer for the rest of his life.  Second, mistakes happen and more than once convicted criminals have been released once it was realized they were innocent all along.  Third, just like most Canadians, I do not possess a very strong "revenge" mentality.

But then you encounter situations where you ask yourself if the death penalty wouldn't be the best solution.  Take a look at Paul Bernardo and his wife Karla Homolka who killed all those teenagers a few years back.  Even worse, what about Homolka managing to weasel out of a life sentence in a plea bargain?  What do you do with people like that?  House them in jail for the rest of their lives?  Or just get it over with and have them put to death?

Whenever the death penalty is carried out in the States, are Americans searching for justice or revenge?  Even the relatives of McVeigh's victims who attended the closed-circuit broadcast of the execution aren't quite sure.

Montreal invaded by bad U.S. air

Montreal was suffering from a nasty bout of smog.  Right now, the sky overhead appears blue, but last Friday it turned grey as you look over the horizon.  A true barometer of air quality can be found on the northern platform of the McGill Metro station where a big display spits out the current air quality readings, reporting exactly how good or bad the air is in the city.  Anything below 25 is good.  Anything below 50 is acceptable.

At 6 P.M. last Friday, the air quality reading was a whopping 523!  Over ten times the allowable limit, all of it consisting of dust!  Other readings such as ozone and carbon monoxide were all at their acceptable levels.  These smog conditions are mainly due to a dirty air mass coming from the United States that has settled over our fair city; it's not caused by air pollution generated from within Montreal itself.

This is a highly exceptional situation here.  The highest reading I've ever seen on the board was around 250 a couple of years ago.  But 523?  Ouch!  So while waiting for the air to clear out, please refrain from breathing.

Square watermelons: $135 each

This is not really news, but it is rather unusual.  A Japanese farmer has grown watermelon in these square transparent boxes and has managed to create square watermelon.  The only problem is that they're so rare they're rather overpriced.

So whatever you do, don't spit out the seeds!  Hold on to them!

The Phantom Edit

Here's an interesting tidbit.  Some mysterious editor in the United States decided to improve "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" by re-editing a copy of the existing video release.  The mystery editor modified certain scenes, took out others, and tried to eliminate as much of Jar Jar Binks as possible.  The final result is a version that many have considered much better than the original, seamless in it's delivery, and not attempting to make a "kiddie" movie out of a series many of us have respected and admired since 1977.

I've yet to see "The Phantom Menace".  Considering I don't like to go to theaters anymore and the fact the movie still hasn't been released on DVD yet, this is not all that surprising.  But now I'm stuck with a dilemma.  Do I watch the crappy Lucas version?  Or do I watch the better packaged Phantom Edit?  And is the edited version available in a widescreen format?

For more information on The Phantom Edit and other links to this very special edition, check out http://members.onecenter.com/hollywood/phantomedit .

How about the reviews?

As I said, I have some time on my hands.  And I did pick up a few movies in the last couple of weeks.  Maybe too many of them.  My credit cards are screaming bloody murder -- again.

So after purchasing titles such as "The Seven year Itch", "Cast Away" and Crouching Tiger, "Hidden Dragon", which movie will I review later on this week?

"The Thing With Two Heads".

Yes, it is a rather unusual movie to review, but all the other sites are reviewing the good titles.  Plus, my review of those titles may not run parallel with the opinions of other reviewers.  Here's a sample of what I would have thought of the movies I recently purchased.

That's it for now.  I'll post the "Two Heads" review in a couple of days.  In the meantime, don't choke too much on the city fumes!