Wednesday, October 31, 2007

A quick question

If you're not a Brantford resident, don't bother reading any further.

So in the Price Chopper/Wendy's/LCBO plaza (Clarence/Market/Icomm), it looks like they're building a few new stores to go in. I've heard Williams and Blockbuster mentioned as tenants, but from the looks of things, there's gotta be more.

Anybody in the know?

--Ryan

Saturday, October 27, 2007

The Taste I Can't See!

I find myself plucking pieces of cereal out from the bowl, carefully examining each piece and throwing them away in anguish as I dig out the next one. I once prided myself in my ability to identify the colours and shapes, the beauty and charactor found on those morsels of nourishment.

But that time has passed. It's not that I don't have the ability to see the cinnamon and sugar swirls on every bite - or maybe it is - but that right now after searching for ten minutes... I just don't have the time. I can still taste it. But isn't this "The taste you can see!"?

I've grown up now... My inner child used to be such a nice boy, but now he's bad at sharing the ability to see the swirls. Damn these little squares of savory goodness. Damn these Golden Grahams to Hell!

Oh well... We'll see how this midlife crisis plays out.

I can only hope, flawlessly.

--
Dan

Friday, October 26, 2007

Honeygarlic goes HD!

Every TV station (and Dave FM) was doing it, so we here at honeygarlic decided to follow suit - and honeygarlic.blogspot.com is now in HIGH DEFINITION!

Not really.

The comic strips I posted over the last two articles are larger than the original size of our page, and look crappy when resized. So I compensated by making the blog wider (and I have no idea how I did it, since I don't understand whatever advanced HTML or other language our blog is published in). Once the comics are off the front page, I'll move us back down to our original size. Yes, this post is mainly to get the comics one step closer to the oblivion that is our old posts.

--Ryan

10 comics your newspaper should carry (part 2)

All right, let's wrap this thing up. Last night's entries mean absolutely nothing, because these are the five comic strips that every newspaper should take a look at!

5) The Duplex

When I first stumbled upon The Duplex, I thought it was by one of the Shoebox greeting card artists. I'm still not convinced it isn't, but the humour is better than what my first impression of it was. Very good at the sort of strip where you enter the final panel with no idea of what the punchline will be.

4) Frog Applause

I'm going to call the Frog Applause style of humour 'postmodern'. I'm reasonably sure it isn't in fact postmodern, but it gets the idea across nicely. 90% of all FA comics follow this trend - a character (there's roughly a dozen regulars) offering up one line of dialogue in their trademark manner. It's something I've never seen before, and it's pulled off very well.

3) Brewster Rocket: Space Guy

'Idiots in space' is not exactly a new theme - think Buck Rogers, Mars Attacks! or even Captain Star. However, it's pulled off very well here - the incompetence is divided among everyone equally. Bonus points for having a recent week dedicated to Cliff mediating a dispute among the donut people - the glazed were fighting with the powdered.

2) State of the Union

This is what I was talking about yesterday, when I mentioned 'no more serious political comments'. There a 50% chance that SotU is in fact the right-wing answer to Candorville, Doonesbury and the like. However, there's also a 50% chance that SotU is in fact a brilliant parody of what such a strip would look like - the right-wing rhetoric is so strong at times that I can't fathom anybody seriously believing it.

1) Hubert and Abby

Hands down, the funniest comic strip I have ever stumbled across. Abby is an overworked nurse, Hubert is...nobody's sure what he is, but he has a five-year-old's sense of not knowing how the world works (i.e. 'we should start a family business and live off the profits' is considered solid retirement planning), and Turtle is a turtle. That's really all you need to know.

There you have it - the final five comic strips your newspaper should carry, according to me. Maybe you haven't learned something, but at least you got a laugh or five out of it.

--Ryan

Thursday, October 25, 2007

10 comics your newspaper should carry (part 1)

I'll admit it, I still like comic strips. Unfortunately, a lot of newspapers (not that I'm singling out the KW Record or anyone else) like to run comics such as Blondie or Hi and Lois, despite the fact that they're not particularly funny - the only reason I've managed to come up with is "our readers liked them as kids". In the meantime, there are some great comic strips out there struggling to break into any newspapers. So, for your amusement, I present to you...ten comics your newspaper SHOULD carry!

Two ground rules - if I have EVER seen the comic in ANY newspaper, it doesn't qualify. Secondly, it must be a newspaper-style strip - not a webcomic. Of course, there's one exception to each rule, but I'll get them out of the way early on.

10) Pooch Cafe

Based solely on humour, Pooch Cafe would be much higher on this list. But because it's in many newspapers, I had to settle for having it at #10. Most comic strips build towards one punchline, which is contained at the end of the strip. Pooch Cafe's punchlines aren't much better than average, but what sets them apart is that there's usually multiple jokes in the same strip. The above strip isn't a great example of what I'm talking about, but it still works to an extent - most other comics, either the punchline or the final visual gag would stand by itself.

9) Snake 'n' Bacon

This one needs a bit of explaining - Snake 'N' Bacon were movie stars back in the early days of talking pictures. Now they host a radio show. The snake never says anything other than a hiss, and the bacon never says anything other than facts about bacon (i.e. 'Pat me down with a paper towel to remove excess grease'). Oh, and they apparently fight crime for some reason. I've only ever seen two strips from the series, and it was never really intended to be a 'real' comic strip, so it also gets jumbled at the bottom of the list, despite some awesome surrealist humour.

8) Candorville

Left-wing political cartoons are a dime a dozen these days, and there's nothing special that makes Candorville particularly stand out from the crowd. However, the fact that I happen to agree with pretty much everything I read in it means that I obviously like it, so it makes the top ten. You'll be glad to know that it's the only political cartoon you'll see here in a 'serious' light...

7) The Elderberries

Where are most successful comic strips? In the newspaper! Who still reads newspapers? People with lots of time on their hands! Who has lots of time on their hands? The retired! Where do retired people congregate? Retirement homes! I can only assume that was the thinking behind the creation of this strip...as otherwise, most of the humour could fit a workplace, school, bus, or anywhere else you'd get a random cluster of people interacting with each other The jokes aren't side-splittingly funny, but they're easily on par with your average strip.

6) Ink Pen

Ink Pen is another comic which requires me to explain its premise - the characters all work for an 'agency for out-of-work cartoon characters'. As such, you have a nice hodgepodge of superheroes, talking animals, regular people, and Norse gods. Again, there's nothing groundbreaking, but the jokes and art are both solid.

Coming up tomorrow (hopefully), part two of this list - the five comics your newspaper REALLY should carry!

--Ryan

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Drew Carey, come on down!

A few months back, when it was announced that Bob Barker was retiring from The Price Is Right, it was fairly big news.

When Rosie O'Donnell's name surfaced as a potential replacement candidate, it was arguably the top story in the entertainment industry at the time.

When Drew Carey was finally revealed as Barker's replacement, it was still fairly newsworthy.

Show of hands - how many of you realized that episodes with Carey as host have been airing for over a week now? Judging by the amount of ink I've seen devoted to the subject - none - it's probably very few of you.

I watched the first episode in full, and I've seen bits and pieces since then, and let me say this...Drew Carey was a really good choice. He might not be as adored by Joe Average as Bob was, but Drew's hardcore fans love Drew more than Bob's hardcore fans love Bob. It seems like he's rooting for the contestants, which is a good thing. And he isn't trying to make the show into something it's not.

I really only have two complaints about what I've seen. One, at times it seems as if Drew is too low-key, too understated. It's probably not his fault - maybe not even his decision - but the show's now about the games and the contestants, not about the host. That might be a good thing. What's not so good, however, is the Showcase Showdown. Bob had been watching that wheel for years; he instinctively knew where every number was, and where any spin was likely to land. Drew's still too new at the job to get any of that, but it will come in time.

Overall, good job CBS on the new hiring.

--Ryan

P.S. 'Google Whores', Dan? Did you really think anyone would believe that?

Monday, October 22, 2007

Pluggage of My Own

I just thought I'd share my appreciation of the Google services. I'm finding the only thing keeping me balanced (or at least, as balanced as I am) is the Google calendar. Here's a little list of the other services I've taken advantage of:

Blogger - Duh! You're using it right now!

Google Calendar - The aforementioned calendar, it's as handy as the famous Palm Desktop (meant for a Palm Pilot, but useful for absolutely everybody). The leg up this one has, of course, is it's on the internet!

Gmail - At this point in time, I have 4279 megs of online email storage available. Not bad!

Documents - So I've pirated Word and Excel already, but I still find this online app handy. Upload files and edit them online, in case you ever find yourself wanting to work while waiting for someone at the library. (Yeah, like that'll ever happen.)

Reader - My personal favourite. Instead of checking each and every one of my favourite websites for updates, Google Reader will tell me when there's something new! A huge time saver.

Maps - Satellite images are ten times cooler than the crappy directions Mapquest used to give. Does that thing still exist? Maps also gives beautiful directions, and allows you to drag and drop if you want to take an alternate route.

Whores - Perhaps the most popular, yet of the lesser known of Google services, Google Whores will send a hot-mama to your home to please and pleasure. Not that I've ever tried of course... (Available also in Canada and the UK. 18+ only, depending on your area of access!)


Of course, there's iGoogle, Web search, Image search, Video search... and Desktop, Products, Scholar. But the ones I've mentioned are the ones I use most. (Not the last one, of course. That's not actually Google. And I hope it's not a service. Good god, I hope no one clicked that.) All hail Google!

Go! See how that plays out!

I can only imagine flawlessly!

--
Dan

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

A little bit of pluggage

Here's a whole bunch of websites I visit from time to time that some of you might find interesting. They're listed in the same order they are in my Favorites menu, which is a combination of alphabetical and chronological. Also note that this is easily in the top five for 'laziest ideas for blog posts ever'.

Abandonia - 'Abandonware' refers to computer programs (mainly games) which are no longer sold or even supported by their creator. As such, there's really no harm being done in third parties distributing them for free. It's a bit of a grey area, but it's a lot more legal than a lot of stuff out there, and Abandonia is an excellent resource with hundreds of old downloadable games - including many of those you'll remember from your youth.

Batters Box Baseball Blog - Yeah, I'm a Blue Jays fan, and the folks at Batters Box cover them better than anyone else. A lot of the statisical analysis stuff is way too in-depth for me, but most of the site is a great read for anyone interested in baseball.

Fark - This one shouldn't need any introduction for most of you. Fark started off as a website to post offbeat news stories found in the far corners of Internet news, and has evolved over time to now include real news as well.

IDGet - IDGet is a nice little webcomic by Kevin Magpac. Not updated nearly as often as it once was, but still very well done.

Nationstates - Nationstates is an online simulator in which you, well, build your own country. A lot of people find it ridiculously boring - and compared to some of what's out there, it is - but I'm not yet one of them.

Last.fm - Probably another one you've heard of - but if you haven't, last.fm offers a downloadable program which will then keep track of all music you listen to on your computer (not counting radio station streams or anything along those lines), and keep it nicely organized on its website.

Legends of Classic Rock Blog - Jeff Woods is the host of Legends of Classic Rock, a radio program syndicated across Canada. He also writes a daily blog (mostly focusing on classic rock artists) which I enjoy reading.

There you go. Seven solid websites. I have some better (read: less lazy) ideas for posts, which I'll probably get to later in the week.

--Ryan

Friday, October 12, 2007

Another Youtube treat

Enough politics. How about something ridiculously awesome?

Ever wanted to hear a few hundred thousand people sing the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song?

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

That's a wrap!

For a variety of reasons, each less believable than the last, I didn't get around to doing an as-it-happens diary. I'll make up for it sometime.

So Dalton McGuinty poked his head out, saw his shadow, and declared four more years of Liberal rule for the province of Ontario. Can't say I'm surprised - I didn't vote Liberal, but I didn't see this election going any other way. What follows are some random thoughts on the election itself, as well as the CTV coverage, in the order they come to me...

-Obviously the CTV team had some problems (pixelating picture and disappearing audio), but I can forgive them for it. With as many people in as many different places as they would have had tonight, something was bound to go wrong - and they'd have more trouble than usual getting in contact with the people who know how to fix it. Besides, I seem to be making a habit of watching DVDs that do the same thing, only worse.
-Poor John Tory. I think his main fault is that he's just a little too naive for public life. It seemed to me like he honestly believed political success was more about having good ideas and knowing the issues, and less about, well, politics. It seemed from his concession speech that he's already learned where he went wrong, and he'll be leading the Conservatives again come the next election. Good.
-Howard Hampton, on the other hand, might be done. No real opinion on this (because I don't know who could replace him), but a new approach might lead the NDP to even greater gains.
-When did CKCO's Frank Lynn turn from "the one guy at the station who you'd actually expect to dig and/or fight for a story" to "the old guy who was probably a good journalist once", and when can we expect Art Baumunk to undergo a similar transformation? And whatever happened to David Imrie?
-I'm still convinced that Gerard Kennedy will one day be Prime Minister.
-On a similar note, the NDP could really have used a better spokesperson. Kennedy and Ernie Eves both managed to spin things to their parties' benefit as well, but Olivia Chow wasn't the least bit subtle about it.
-I'm told that it's still surprisingly easy to defraud electoral officers.
-Does Mike Duffy have a sponsorship deal with Blackberry? On a similar note, can his mere existence be proof that intellect is still more important than looks in some avenues of television?
-My polling station was a church gymnasium. When I went to vote, the priest was there mingling with idle workers. The phrase 'seperation of church and state' popped into my head. I forget where I was going with this.
-It's too bad that MMP didn't come anywhere close to going through, but I can easily blame it on the fact that nobody wanted to publicize it. That takes a way a bit of the pain, and if we can get it on the 2011 ballot, hopefully people will have learned enough by then.
-Speaking of MMP, I started watching CTV's election coverage at about 8:45. First mention of the referendum? 9:48. Second mention? 10:21. Third mention? Nope!
-For the first half-hour or so after polls closed, the CTV ticker showed one 'other party' candidate leading - but none of the hosts mentioned it, and we never saw a graphic for whatever riding that was. Even though I'm sure they never stood a chance, I'd have like to have known what that was about - similar to the last federal election, where CTV showed a Marxist-Leninist candidate leading in Surrey, with six votes.
-On that note, when you have one or two polling stations reporting and the leading candidate has 12 votes, why are the TV people assuming it's indicative of how everythig else will go?
-Those were some really, really good chocolate chip cookies.

I think that's everything I've got. Fun night.

--Ryan

Giblets!

Thanksgiving is not Thanksgiving without a turkey. I am now in the process of correcting this.

In light of my previous post, I'm making a turkey. So far so good, but I'm really curious about one thing. What the hell are giblets and what should I do with them?

In my turkey, they seem to be removed, wrapped in some kind of paper, and placed back in the bird. They seem to be (as I sit here, typing and poking them) a heart and a liver. I don't know what has happened to the neck, and I have no idea what a gizzard is. Odds are, I don't think I want to know.

So what shall I do with this heart and liver? I've promised my roommate, Mark, that I'll whip him up something nice with them. So far, my plan is to make a pate (by squishing the liver up really good and sticking it on a cracker). As for the heart? Well, let's just say this is going to be the grossest milkshake the world has ever seen.

We'll see how well that plays out.

I can only imagine flawlessly.

--
Dan

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Election ahoy!

So there's an election tomorrow. I've been meaning to write about it for a while now, but I kept putting it off, and then I forgot about it (on that note, I'd like to thank Dan for keeping you all entertained this weekend).

It seems a little late now, but some quick thoughts:

-I followed this election closer than I've ever followed any election, mainly because it's the first one I'm eligible to vote for.
-Despite that, or maybe because of it, I was a little disappointed. Howard Hampton wasn't carrying Jello and swiss cheese to all his campaign stops, and nobody refered to Dalton McGuinty as an 'evil reptillan kitten-eater from another planet'. That was a bit of a let-down.
-Watching the full debate, I thought Dalton came off terribly with maybe one or two exceptions. Watching Mike Duffy's analysis afterwards, he seemed to agree with me. Watching/reading ANYTHING the next day, they pretty much only showed the exceptions.
-Let me get this straight. We've got massive unemployment, the always-persistent crime problem, long health care rates, astronomically-rising tuition...and the only issue that anybody paid attention to is the education of a few thousand people? Nice work by the Liberal spin doctors to divide people based on THAT, but it's ridiculous.
-Why did John Tory not play off his successful business background a little more?
-Ahahahaha, John Turmel.

I'm voting tomorrow, as I should hope you all are. In the interest of full disclosure, I started off willing to listen to anyone, but I'll be voting for the Conservatives (I don't want to see the NDP as anything more than opposition, Dalton's debate performance pretty much sealed the fact that I won't be voting for the Liberals, and I like to think my vote matters, so I don't vote for minor parties that don't stand a chance.)

More importantly, I'll be voting 'yes' on the referendum. Unfortunately, much as I think we'll have another Liberal government, I'm convinced that MMP will not go through, at least not this year. It's too bad, really. If we were under MMP, I'd definitely be giving the Green and FC parties a lot bigger of a look - but too many people see it as nothing but a way to get more politicians in office, so it's not gonna go through.

There you go. A few thoughts on the election - remember, I'm new at this.

If I'm not doing anything else tomorrow night, I'll probably keep a running diary of the televised election coverage.

--Ryan

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving!

My usual methods of procrastination have let me down, so I've finally decided to make use of our savory and oh-so-saucy blog.

First off, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone had a beautiful bird with more stuffing than they could stuff into themselves. I personally had a ham, which is cool too.

I'm thankful for this chance to get good grades in school this year. Why, here's my first chance! Conveniently timed such that employment training at the Sanderson Centre can only prove to motivate me, I have my first two term papers as well as a Stats test this week. (I'm really not complaining. I'm writing this down in hopes that I'll remember to get ready for this week.)

What am I actually thankful for? Oktoberfest was a bit enjoyable. I didn't partake to any worthwhile extent, but my sister probably did. That could be why she missed the ham. Or perhaps she just jumped on the chance to have Turkey instead.

Alright, one last chance to seriously be thankful on this Thanksgiving day: I'm thankful for my good fortune, as I had my phone number changed to spell out my name. (And as soon as Bell lets me pay my bill to receive calls, I might actually appreciate it.)

There are things, events, and especially people that I am thankful for, but after the sorry list I started with... I think it's disrespectful to bring them up.

How's this for a cheesy answer? I'm thankful that you read this entry!

We'll see how well that plays out.

I can only imagine flawlessly.

--
Dan

Friday, October 5, 2007

Who remembers World War II?

So I seem to do most of my blogging on weekends. A smarter man might stockpile weekend writing for posting during the week.

When you surf all corners of the Internet, you find some amazing things. Of course, it's much easier to simply let a website like Fark bring them to your attention. Such was the case earlier this week with a San Francisco Chronicle article entitled 'For class of S.F. high school, WWII details are elusive'.

What was I expecting? Something along the lines of a "today's students aren't educated enough about major historical events like World War II". I'd be fine with that.

I don't pretend I know everything there is to know about WWII, but I like to think I know the basic facts - started in the late 30s in Europe, the US got involved with the bombing of Pearl Harbour in 1941, and the war ended in 1944. The Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima had atomic bombs dropped on them, and Hitler committed suicide. D-Day. Churchill. Normandy. That sort of stuff.

I don't have a problem with people who know a lot less about WWII than I do. If you have a rough idea of when it happened, who was on your side, who was on the other side, and what the Holocaust was, that's enough for me.

The Chronicle surveyed 90 high school students - all of whom should have covered WWII in history class by this point - and here were some of the responses.

"Hoping to aid Third World countries, the United States joined the war."

To the question "Who was US President during WWII?", eighteen students left the question blank, while Winston Churchill (UK) and George Washington (dead) each garnered votes.

To "When was World War II?", dates ranged from 1700 to 1967.

"Who was Winston Churchill?" - answers ranged from 'a dictator' to 'some important dude'.

"Who was Benito Mussolini?" - answers included 'Soviet leader', 'an explorer' and 'a columnist'.

"What was the war about?" - obviously there are lots of possible answers for this one, but I doubt that 'communism' or 'Boston tea' had anything to do with it.

So, yeah. Overall, I can make excuses for a lot of ignorance - but the Chronicle's survey is taking things to a whole new level.

--Ryan

Monday, October 1, 2007

Awkwardly-worded thought for the day

You don't notice how poorly some socks can be insulated, until you find a pair that isn't.

--Ryan