The greatest thing since I-don't-know-what!

I just found out that today is the centennial of one of the most innovative inventions of the kitchen. I'm speaking, of course, of the electric toaster.

Before the electric toaster, people probably performed alchemy on slices of bread by channeling the fire-demons. But holding a piece of bread in a campfire or wood-burning stove proved to be dangerous - after all, fire-demons tend to bite at mortal fingers.

Bill Watterson's character, Hobbes asks, "but where does the toast go?" Since we no longer rely on witchcraft, the bread is merely a tribute to the former sacrificial ways - yet the bread is still necessary. Without the bread, there would be a spacial disturbance when the toast appears.

Anyway, happy birthday, Toaster!

Your the greatest thing since I-don't-know-what!

--

D. Phillips

Digitally Connected: A Social Networking and eBusiness Conference Philippines 2009

Enhance your digital connections come April 23 and 24, 2009 as Fiera de Manila Inc. and DigitalFilipino.com Club bring you the Social Networking and eBusiness Conference Philippines 2009. It will be held at Hotel Intercontinental in Ayala Avenue, Makati City, Philippines. On its second year, theSocial Networking and eBusiness Conference Philippines 2009 bades to surpass the success of last

Philippines Voted for Earth

The Philippines voted for Earth as a nation last March 28, 2009 by successfully having at least 650 communities to participate in the global election for Mother Earth called Earth Hour.According to a WWF officer, this fact placed the Philippines in the number one position in terms of number of town and city participants worldwide from 88 countries. This is followed by Greece's 484, and

LED World

This is a LED world!

Ryan Flanagan's Bar-Fight Extravaganza!

Ryan has just posted last night's adventures, but since I was there - albeit for only a brief period of the events - I thought I'd clear up a bit of his story.

In my opinion, the only way Ryan's contact could have been dislodged was by a brutal attack by some douche and his finger. Thankfully, Ryan wears contacts, so Douche's efforts were - at least in part - in vain. After being stabbed repeatedly in the eye, Ryan's contact finally gave way and rolled to the back of his head.

That's when Ryan said "Enough's enough!", socked the guy in the mouth, came home, and asked me to drive him to the hospital.

The end.

--
D. Phillips

Emergency

So last night was one of the most unusual nights of my life.

First off, I went to a party. While that is a little out of the ordinary for me, it's not what I'm referring to.

At said party, I was accidentally poked in the eye.

Now, allow me to digress for a moment. The bloke who did the poking (name withheld to protect the innocent) is not somebody I'd ever really talked to, or even been around for a lengthy period of time, before. However, I knew him (or at least of him) well enough to think I wouldn't like him if I did know him, meaning I was holding a bit of a grudge against somebody I didn't really know at all. I kept telling myself that this was wrong, I should give him the benefit of the doubt because it's not like he's ever wronged me in any way. I consider this sufficient ammo.

But back to my eye. As I've mentioned fleetingly in the past, I wear contacts. Have for my entire life. So getting poked in the eye is, well, not something I want to have happen. Not even accidentally. There are three possibilities for what could happen:

1) Everything would be fine (unlikely, and I knew right away this wasn't the case).

2) The lens would flip out of my eye and land either just above my cheekbone or on the floor.

3) The lens would move off my pupil but remain in my eye.

Past experience has taught me that #3 is the most likely, and that's certainly what it felt like - my eye didn't feel how it normally does when the lens is out. Plus I hadn't noticed it falling out.

I ducked into a washroom and looked around my eyeball a bit, stretching eyelids hither and thither. No luck. (Didn't help that my eyes were very, very, very red by this point - an unfortunate side effect of my consuming even the least bit of alcohol. Especially if it's late.)

I recruited a friend to come into the washroom and help me out, the logic being that if I were to open my top eyelid and look down, she could see what was above my pupil whereas I'd be only able to see my pupil, were I looking in a mirror. Ditto for the bottom. She didn't see anything.

Nonetheless, the feeling convinced me that it was still in my eye, and not wanting to make a bigger deal out of my dilemma than necessary, I decided I could deal with it once I got home.

I got home around 2. Got ready for bed for some reason (optimism, I guess), then went back to trying to find the missing lens. Thought I found it, and tried to nudge it back to centre (which now worries me a little bit - considering the eventual conclusion, what was I doing?).

No luck, and I lost track of whatever I'd been looking at.

Scrambling for ideas, I knocked on Dan's bedroom door. Luckily he was smart enough to figure out that if I was waking him up at 2:30 AM, there was probably a very good reason (or maybe because I was knocking and not entering, he just couldn't throw a shoe at me). Despite his uneasiness about all things related to contact lenses, he was willing to look around my eye and tell me he couldn't see anything either.

Then he drove me to the hospital.

I'd heard horror stories about Brantford General Hospital from quite a few people - and good stories from precisely nobody - so this was really a last resort. But nothing else was open, and I really didn't want to fall asleep while I still thought there was a contact lens drifting around my eyeball.

We got there about 3:00, and after some brief questioning, I was told that there was only one doctor in, so it would probably be a three-hour wait. This didn't bother me too much - I was expecting far worse, and I probably had the least severe situation of anyone who showed up in the ER all night.

Nonetheless, three hours meant that I couldn't really expect Dan to stay with me, so I sent him home. Although I did ask him if he'd mind coming back with some supplies to get me through the night - remember, I didn't want to fall asleep - and he was happy to oblige. Around 3:45, Dan returned with a bag full of far more than I'd asked for. What was in that bag?

There was the book I wanted. There was another book that Dan threw in because he thought the first one sounded boring. There was an MP3 player (in case I wanted to walk home, since it was fairly warm out and wasn't *that* far a walk). Finally, there was my jug of saline solution - according to the Internet, if I lied down and basically drowned my eye in the stuff, there was a chance the lens would float to the top. It didn't.

Dan went back home (this time to get some sleep), and I prepared for a three-hour-or-so wait - I know they'd said 6:00, but I'd heard that there'd be three doctors coming in at 7:00, so I reasoned that I might not be seen until then.

The book, and occasionally trying the saline thing again, helped pass the time. Around 5:00, I succumbed to hunger and bought a Snickers from a vending machine.

By 6:00, I was getting tired. I'd stopped reading, and started leaning back, head on a wall, figuring there's no way I'd be able to sleep with a wall as a pillow. I was wrong, because when I was called to the back five minutes later, it shook me out of a half-sleep.

I was led to the back, and to a patient room. It was clear I was supposed to be in this specific room - I've spent enough of my life around optometrists and opthamologists to know an ocular machine when I see one. This one looked like all it could do was take a detailed look at an eye, which made sense both as all a hospital would have and as something useful for this case. (Having by this point been awake for approximately 21 hours, there was also the chance I was mistaken.)

The bad news was that I was sitting on a bed - a hospital bed. Not particularly comfortable, but I knew if I laid down for even a moment, I'd be out like a light. The good news was that I didn't have to listen for my name anymore, so I could make use of that MP3 player to kill time (one of the first songs, amusingly enough - REM's 'Daysleeper').

Doctors and nurses started showing up for work, clearly a lot of shifts began at 7. For a time, I felt like I was in an episode of Scrubs - hearing all the chitchat and such; my limited knowledge of the hospital layout led me to conclude that I was closer to their workspaces than most emergency patients would get.

It was at this point that I reached a conclusion (which I may or may not have stolen from a TV show, I'm really not sure) - if doctors are talking about a patient amongst themselves, and there's even the slightest chance of the patient overhearing, they should refer to them by their middle name, eliminating the possibility for spoilers. They're bad enough for movies.

After waiting for what was starting to seem like an obscenely long time, I took off the MP3 player. I'm not sure what I was planning on doing next; sleep was starting to seem like a definite possibility. About ten seconds later, a doctor came in.

He had a look around my eye, said there was no way the lens was in there, but on the plus side there wasn't any cornea damage from the initial incident either, so I could just put in my spare lens and all should be fine.

I left the hospital a little annoyed at wasting five hours of prime sleeping time over nothing, but with a sense of gladness that this was Canada and the whole thing only cost me the $1.25 I deposited into a vending machine. I called my awesome roommate and politely told him that I was going to walk to Tim Horton's (because I was hungry) but I'd like him to meet me there and drive me home (because it was raining). He did.

I went home, ate my Bagel BELT (those things are good - move over Egg McMuffin, I have a new unhealthy breakfast sandwich to eat once in a blue moon), and went to bed. It was 8:45 AM.

Woke up about five hours later, meaning I should be able to fall asleep not too far past my normal time tonight. Also early enough that I can actually do some of the schoolwork I was originally planning to today. I'll get on that.

--Ryan

Placeholder

(Apologies. This is in some ways a derivative of my recent post regarding the Internet. It was sitting on my hard drive, and I didn't want it to go completely to waste, but it's not especially interesting.

I actually do have a number of great ideas for this blog that I'm really excited about; it's just that I'm spending most of my time these days either writing something for school or procrastinating on doing so - additional writing doesn't really appeal to me. Throw in my mildly neurotic quest to see that honeygarlic never goes more than 2-3 days without an update, and this is what you get.

On a happier note, this is the 300th post in the history of honeygarlic. I recognize this milestone in the tags/labels section with a now-somewhat-dated movie reference.)


As students, technology plays an undeniably large role in our lives. We use instant messengers to be in constant communication with our friends – and when we're not at our computers, texts fill the same purpose. Facebook and cell phones help to ensure that we're able to make plans with whomever we want, whenever we want.

The problem is that it's not just us anymore. Originally, our generation embraced technology because it was something where we “got it” and our parents didn't. We could just say that we were on Facebook, or talking to someone on MSN, and our parents would nod along and pretend they knew what we were talking about.

But that's no longer the case. Everyone from your high school science teacher to your grandmother is on Facebook, and even those that aren't at least have some idea of what it is.

It's not just the older generation that's finally figured out how to maximize the Internet, though – marketing and public relations executives have done the same thing.

Take Twitter for example. Twitter has been around since 2006, but it's only in the last few weeks that it has taken off as the latest popular social networking outlet, even though Facebook and other sites offer everything you can do on Twitter, and much more.

So why is Twitter suddenly so successful? Celebrities. A Facebook friend request is still, to some extent, a personal thing. But if you're following somebody on Twitter, a level of anonymity remains – people are more willing to stalk complete strangers. Only on Twitter could you read about Hugh Laurie being unable to find his lighter, or Tina Fey eating lunch.

There's a downside, though. For every Shaquille O'Neal or Rainn Wilson using Twitter the same way you and I do, there's another 'celebrity' using Twitter solely to enhance their brand recognition. In fact, some of these celebrities aren't even doing their own Twittering – it's their PR guy doing it for them.

As soon as the marketing industry realizes how popular something is, they try to use it as a way to make money – and they only succeed in driving off the people who made it popular. It happened to rock music, it happened to the radical causes of the sixties, and it's happening to the Internet.

In a way, these websites' own policies are going to be their deathknell. Although Facebook users were firmly behind Facebook's decision to not allow any sort of substantive advertising, this logic is somewhat flawed – most people admit to being so overexposed to advertising that they no longer notice it, therefore it would be in Facebook's best interest to allow more advertisements, making them more money and not particularly inconveniencing its userbase.

Instead, these websites are living by the beliefs that “advertising = bad”, and allowing advertisements will lead to a mass exodus. Companies have instead been forced to look for creative ways to adopt the medium without direct advertising – leading to the aforementioned marketing executives on Twitter. If it gets too cumbersome to find people to connect with on these websites without running afoul of public relations gurus, Web surfers aren't going to stick around.

But there is help, and as is so often the case, it's coming from an unlikely source. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Modena has suggested that all its parishoners abstain from text messaging on Fridays during Lent. In a statement, the diocese called their recommendation “a small way to remember the importance of concrete and not virtual relationships.” Other grassroots groups are springing up as well – people who believe that we have become too reliant on the Internet, and need to get back to more personal forms of communication.

It's not over yet. The Internet is constantly evolving, and we still don't know what it will look like two years from now. Social networking might be the way of the future, or it might be a passing fad. Surfing and texting might be done with less regularity as bandwidth continues to dry up. Regardless, the days of the Internet being a tool for our generation to feel superior to our elders have long passed. Now that anybody of any age can use it for one reason or another, it truly is the World Wide Web.

--Ryan

Be a SAMMI in Las Vegas!!

Samsung Mobile Innovator will be at CTIA, the biggest wireless conference in North America (Las Vegas, 4/1-4/3, http://www.ctia.org/). Please find us at the Samsung booth and learn about our latest products, services and programs including Samsung Mobile Innovator!!

What’s happening at the Samsung Mobile Innovator booth?
· Meet the team and have a chance to speak with industry and technology experts from Samsung Mobile Innovator, Samsung’s developer program
· Register for the Samsung Mobile Innovator program and explore resources and opportunities
· Enter for a chance to win an Samsung Omnia Windows Mobile phone. Three will be awarded each day. Check out the Omnia at http://omnia.samsungmobile.com/
· Demonstrate key industry players’ mobile applications on Samsung Windows Mobile phones

Booth Location:
Booth #5125 @ the main Exhibition Hall

Vote for Mother Earth

A global election is happening on March 28, 2009. It's the world's first global election and we're not voting for people, we're voting for Earth. This is the Earth Hour.Vote Earth by turning your lights off for one hour (or vote global warming by leaving your lights on). The results of the election will presented at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this year. They are targeting

Welcome...

This is Sammi, the blog of the Samsung Mobile Innovator program. Why Sammi? Sammi is the name that we gave the bubble on the left side of our logo. Apart from being a nickname already used by some of Samsung's online fans, we like to think of it as a clever contraction of Samsung Mobile Innovator.

There are several reasons we decided to start this blog. Firstly we think it will be a valuable channel to keep you abreast of any updates or additions to the Samsung Mobile Innovator Program. Secondly, it is an easy way to share with you our thoughts on both our own developer program, and also the mobile industry in general. And finally, being a blog, we think it will be a fantastic way to hear from you our customers about what you think about the Samsung Mobile Innovator program and ways that we can help you realise your ideas; develop your business even more effectively.

The author of this first post is me, Andrew Brennan. I look after content and marketing for the innovator.samsungmobile.com site and am based in the London office. My team here work on the global program and run the Samsung S60 content. I'll be posting here regularly, along with my colleagues from across the Samsung global network, to keep you informed of what's going on in our program. As you can see there are already quite a few posts here - written while we trialed the system. Please feel free to comment on any of them.

Photo story: The sport of rich people

People have different ways of dealing with frustration. Some go for escapism - getting lost in a movie, TV show, book, or music (speaking of which, check out Wolf Parade; you'll be glad you did). Others might look for a more physical outlet, a way to release some aggression. Yet others will turn to creativity - pouring a tremendous amount of effort into art, or writing, or something of that nature.

Another group - and if you haven't guessed by now, this is the group I consider myself a part of - abhors cliché and looks for a way to combine some of the above ideas. For example, a creative way to let out aggression. And that's what this is.


Well, okay, that's not what *this* is. This is my house. Notice that there's a rather large gap between windows, and that it faces a parking lot. I wonder what I can do with that...


Bingo!

Now, before we go any further, I should bring a few things to your attention.

I am not a tennis player. In fact, before this, I had not even picked up a tennis racket in at least six years. And even then, I wasn't good.

I do not have even an average level of coordination, meaning I embarrass myself almost every time I try anything even vaguely athletic.

Those windows could presumably break if hit by a tennis ball traveling at a decent speed.

Nonetheless, I thought this was a good idea.


The house is obviously a tough opponent, but that didn't deter Dan from taking a surprisingly good 'bring it on!' photo.


Repeatedly bouncing the ball to prove that there are some feats even I can accomplish. Or maybe because it makes for a good picture.


Coolly intercepting the rebound as a bus looks on.


Pleading with the heavens after the ball went over the roof? I don't know what else I'd be doing here.


But if I was pleading, it worked, as the ball somehow landed squarely in the three-inch gap between my fence and my neighbour's fence.


Dan got in on the act too!

So I didn't break any windows. But it was actually pretty fun. Aside from the part where I discovered just how horribly conditioned I am (running back and forth for three angle shots was enough to wind me!). I'll probably do it again sometime.

--Ryan

Knocked Out : A 12 Rounds Movie Review

12 Rounds' Danny Fisher (John Cena's character) was caught by surprise when the criminal master mind he once sent behind bars escaped from prison. Miles (Aiden Gillen), the clever thief is now set to take revenge for the death of his girlfriend which was killed during the heist. And he wants to make sure Detective Fisher experiences the same by kidnapping Danny's wife - Molly (Ashley Scott).But

Print is dy-ing!

(This is not what I teased in my last post. That's still to come.

The following article will appear - perhaps slightly shorter - in this week's Sputnik. Since some people who would never read the Sputnik might find it interesting, here it is.)

Every day, newspapers and television newscasts are full of the latest information on the economy – plant closures, stimulus spending, and job losses. However, what is going unreported is the effect this crisis is having on those doing the reporting, the journalists themselves.

Media companies are laying off workers seemingly every week – over one hundred from CTV this month alone. Nearly a quarter of the staff of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald were given pink slips in February, while CanWest – owners of Global TV and the National Post – is on the verge of bankruptcy. South of the border, Denver's Rocky Mountain News has shut its doors, while the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has moved its entire operation to the Internet – and other newspapers look poised to head down the same roads.

So what is the state of the Canadian news industry, as it stands today? Mary Agnes Welch, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, believes that “at best it's in limbo, at worst it's verging on a crisis. Media companies are frankly just struggling to stay alive, to not go bankrupt like the Rocky Mountain News.”

However, Welch does not believe that the economic crisis is the greatest challenge facing journalism today. Instead, she points out that because news organizations now employ fewer journalists, those journalists are forced to focus more on the quantity of stories produced than the quality.

Maija Saari, a journalism professor at Laurier Brantford, notes that these cutbacks are nothing new. “Well before this immediate recession, places like the Brantford Expositor, their staffs had already been markedly reduced. We were already so thin that we were anorexic, and now they're taking off limbs.”

Saari also believes that “there's this notion that journalists have to be all things to all work environments at all times.” In the case of a print reporter, that might mean having to write the story, take the photographs, and provide additional content online.

Indeed, the emergence of Internet media has created even more work for journalists – as Welch, who is a legislative reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press in addition to her duties with CAJ, explains, “you're doing one story a day, but you're doing that story in a whole bunch of different areas – on the Web, on a video, on a blog, in the paper the next day – and all of that is time-consuming.”

As Welch points out, however, the big question is not how much work journalists can do, it's when journalism will be stretched to the point that the public takes notice.

“As journalists, we always keep hoping that people will notice that there's only four local stories on the 6:00 news and the rest of it is wire stuff or national clips and it's not really local, or they'll notice that their local paper is getting skinnier and skinnier, and doing less investigative work. People are busy – I'm not sure they notice that stuff, especially when they feel like they can get their news and information fix from the Internet or wherever at any time.”

In fact, Welch suggests that there exists a disconnect between journalists and the public they serve - “journalists have spent a long time in this ivory tower,” she says, “they thought of themselves as people who are going to tell you what you need to know, what you should know, instead of trying to find a way to connect with readers, find out what they genuinely think about every day. Journalists should figure out what people actually want to know about, and how to make stories like aboriginal poverty actually resonate with the people.”

Saari agrees with this, noting that “we really have to think twice about 'why are there no stories about disasters and relief?' They're real stories, they're real people suffering on the ground – there's lots of things going on that we don't even think about.”

Why is that? Why are 'real stories' going untold while the death of a celebrity actress gets round-the-clock coverage? Saari believes that “a lot of it has to do with our own positions in the world, our own understanding and bias, what we feel like reading and not reading, what's interesting to us and what's not.” Welch agrees – “people would perhaps rather be on Perezhilton.com than Globeandmail.com,” she says, “lives are more complicated, the world is more complicated, people might not want to read a paper every day to figure out what's going on.”

If, as has been suggested, 'good journalism' is something other than what we see on TV or read in the newspaper each night, then what is it? Welch believes that it works on two levels.

“On a micro level,” she explains, “good journalism is taking the story of the day and having the time and the resources to take it two steps beyond the obvious – so you have time in a day to go out in the community and see if what the government is saying is accurate, or go back and try and add context and a lot of the really detailed explanation that people can use. On a macro level, it's doing stories that nobody else is doing – advocacy journalism, long-form narratives, investigative stuff, all the big stories that uncover things that have been hidden, like Shawinigate – all those stories that fundamentally change public policy and alter the course of government.”

For her part, Saari claims that “any journalism is good journalism,” and that journalists are not necessarily only the reporters employed by leading media outlets. For example, she suggests that the people taking cell phone videos of Robert Dziekanski's tasing at Vancouver International Airport were, at least at that moment, journalists.

In fact, Saari forsees that journalism might undergo a wholesale shift in the coming years – believing that “this notion of elite journalism fails the society it's in,” and that future journalism will be a more collaborative approach, using the Internet and other technology to pass accounts of what has happened from person to person, much as how passersby briefly became journalists when they shot the tasering.

Despite the challenges many media companies are currently facing, Saari believes the craft of journalism is safe. “Every society requires mechanisms by which to exchange information,” she says, “journalism is not going to die.”

--Ryan

New New Pornographers

Apologies for the lack of posting lately. I've been busy. And such. Yeah. Anyhow.

I will get something good up this weekend, provided the weather's good. I have a really stupid idea, and I'm going to talk Dan into taking pictures. Not sure if that's a teaser or a warning.

Regardless, the New Pornographers have a new song. Well, a cover of a Destroyer song. But it's on some sort of compilation album. So here you go. It's not particularly awesome, and it's very repetitive, but I like it.



--Ryan

Zigue Zigue Sputnik

We rather like this innovative idea to get a pic of space by these guys.

How about someone puts up an i8510 with GPS on and sees what app they can come up with? The Mobile Innovator team wants to hear from you. If you have a good idea, we could be persuaded to provide the i8510, since it's likely to end up in the Atlantic...

The Philippine e-Lib: Your Anywhere, Anytime Digital Library

I still remember the days back in my college years where I used to spend time in the main library of UP Diliman scanning through piles and piles of books for my research as a Computer Science student. It was almost a decade ago and how I wished information were more easily accessible.

Technology has changed a lot since then. Even Manila maps are now readily available online. Another proof of

National Bookstore Super Summer Sale

National Bookstore is at it again! Get up to 70% off on your summer reads and other items in the National Book Store Super Summer Sale. Choose from among their discounted hot fiction titles or get splashed with fun water toys such as blow-up balls and goggles. Also on sale are school and office supplies, hobbies and crafts items, and of course - books.Promo runs from Mar. 14 to Apr. 5, 2009. Per

Asus EEE PC & Bo's Coffee Mix

What? Cofee and laptop mix?Yes, Asus Philippines and Bo’s Coffee, give you the chance to own an Asus Eee PC™ you could bring on your next coffee shop visit.Every PHP200 ($4) purchase at any Bo’s Coffee branch entitles the customer to a raffle coupon and a chance to win one (1) of the five (5) Asus Eee PC™ S101H.The shock-proof Asus Eee PC(tm) S101H is designed with chic and striking looks with

Alf, Kermit, and Theadore walk into a bar...

First of all, a very happy birthday goes out to Ryan Flanagan. Since he's a man now, I thought I'd teach him a few of the facts of life. (This video is probably older than him.)

Set aside a good half-hour for this one!



Man, was that a trip or what?

--
D. Phillips

Review: Gander

When I first heard that CBC was making a movie based on the effects of 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland, my instant reaction was 'awesome!'.

Canadians don't exactly like to boast about their achievements, but if there's one time when the boasting is completely called for, this is it - a small town in Newfoundland took in nearly its entire population in stranded tourists, people gave up food, blankets, showers out of their own homes, businesses shut down so their employees could help with the volunteer effort, and striking school bus drivers returned to work to help out. The full story can be found at, oddly enough, Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, and it's worth your time to read it.

So I had high hopes for this movie. Ordinarily, I'm bothered by Canadianicity for the sake of Canadianicity - movies set in Toronto or Montreal or Saskatoon, with characters who have allegedly spent their entire lives there, still feeling a need to shove Canadianisms down the audience's throat. Yet here it would be okay - the story was being told from the perspective of the passengers, the outsiders.

And it started off very well. We're in a plane, about to take off from London, destination New York. We learn the backstories of various characters. Stuff (mostly inconsequential) happens.

Now we see the scene in Gander, where the two air traffic controllers (the only two for the airport) are getting ready for another day of one or two arrivals. Other characters are developed.

Then the news breaks of the attacks. The airline crew realize they'll have to land in Gander, while the Mayor of Gander goes on the radio and asks the community to help out however they can.

Passengers land, most are distraught. After a long time, they're allowed off the plane. One girl has an aunt missing in Manhattan. A young American of Muslim descent takes offense at anybody who blames Arabs for the attacks or looks at him funny.

Then, inexplicably, the movie somehow becomes a romance. A British girl who was on the plane, heading for a new job in New York, falls in love with one of the air traffic controllers and begins to think maybe she should stay in Gander rather than continue on. A thirtysomething British man and woman flirt awkwardly and then decide it doesn't have to be awkward. These two storylines take up what seems like almost all of the second half of the movie.

And the rest of the second half is other clichés. The Ugly American who believes he's entitled to everything even though there are thousands of people in the same situation as him, who sort of but doesn't really come to see the error of his ways. The aforementioned Muslim-American who is repulsed by a less moderate Muslim on the same plane and sees why he was treated the way he was.

And lost in all of this? The original story. The notion - which would be extremely difficult to believe if I didn't know this story beforehand - that there is a community willing to give up absolutely everything to help those in need.

I get that a good movie needs melodrama and characterization. They didn't even do a bad job of it - the romances were decent at least by CBC standards, and I didn't even mind any of the stereotypes other than the Ugly American. But for a movie called 'Gander', I was expecting a movie about Gander, not a movie that happened to be set in Gander.

Overall grade? C-plus. It was good for what it was, but it wasn't what it should have been. Not even close.

--Ryan

What's Up Bro?

Know what's up with Bro!Visit the Music Hall of SM Mall of Asia tomorrow!"Makikila niyo na ang pinakabago mong ka-Bro!" (You will know your latest Bro!), as Smart reveals its new Smart Broadband Encounter on March 13, 2009 from 6 to 9pm*Image is sourced with permission from http://www.flickr.com/photos/8421920@N04/3348180217

For My Lady Readers: Start & Refresh

2ndAvenue.com.ph brings you The Starter Wife: Start & Refresh! Troop to Glorietta 3 Tent in Makati on March 14, 2009 4pm onwards for a day of relaxation and refreshing!.Free make-up sessions, pampering activities, beauty consultations, and more! You may also win exclusive premium items!Moreover, join in the UP Center for Women’s Studies talk on women empowerment. Lastly, catch a live performance

Philippine Fashion Week Fall / Winter / Holiday 2009

May 2009 Update: Philippine Fashion Week Holiday 2009 schedule now available.As early as now, the Philippine Fashion Week Fall / Winter / Holiday 2009 for Yako Reyes' guestlist is being romped up!It will be shown sometime early May of this year and tentative venue is SMX beside SM Mall of Asia. Sign up now if you want to attend for free.Or Click Here. (Update March 26, 2009: the sign up form has

The Internet: good or bad?

(This post is comprised primarily of jumbled thoughts and unanswered questions. You've been warned.)

My Introduction to World Politics course frequently gets into wildly off-topic debates.

Case in point, last night. A 45-minute presentation was followed by an hour-long discussion that never really touched on the course's subject matter, but did include conversations regarding Catholic schools, soccer players who choose to play for the national team of a country other than the one they grew up in, and the year 1968.

Closer to the purpose of this particular post, we also spent a few minutes on the emergence of the Internet.

One of the lines that struck me the most was my professor noting that he couldn't hold the entire class's attention for even a few minutes, because somebody would start looking at their computer or their cell phone.

While this is undeniably true of most students, it isn't true of me - I very rarely bring my computer to class, and my cell phone even less often. This isn't meant to suggest that I'm somehow above the technology-embracers of my peers, just that there must be a different value system at play.

It's not important to me to be in instantaneous contact with my friends at all times. When I'm alone, sure, I'll at least be signed into MSN even if I'm not at my computer, but there are times when I don't think it's appropriate.

Example: I'm having a party here this weekend (if you have any idea where 'here' is, you're invited). Some people will just be coming up for an evening, some will be staying longer. I fully expect that at least a few of those staying longer will bring laptops with them - and those who don't, will likely spend a fair bit of time texting.

Why is it that these people feel a need to be in constant contact with people who aren't around them, when they have friends who are around them? If my parents were to spend a weekend at the cottage of friends of theirs, my mom would be completely isolated from anybody who wasn't also at the cottage, while my dad would check e-mail on his Blackberry every few hours, but that would be the extent of this. They don't see anything wrong with their behaviour. Neither do I (thus it's not completely a generational thing). Is it that people our age value friendships less?

(This isn't to say that there aren't significant advantages to having laptops in class and cell phones when you're on the go.)

Another idea I've thought of is that it's a byproduct of how we were raised. It sometimes feels like other people my age don't want to make any plans unless they know exactly when an event is going to start, when it is going to end, and exactly what they will be doing every moment between those two points.

I've read before that our generation was the first to really have strict, must-be-adhered-to schedules budgeting their time, possibly as a result of most families having both parents working. As a result, we're used to being told we have to be here at time X, then we move on to place Y at time Z. Then, suddenly, we're out living on our own, and we're still only used to that sort of incredibly-detailed schedule, with no idea how to make anything else work.

Thus, my theory goes, when people aren't doing anything specific, their first instinct is not to use their imagination to come up with something to do, but rather to text their friends and find out what they're up to, so that somebody else can do the thinking.

In another one of my classes, the professor has suggested that maybe spending so much of our time online isn't a bad thing - as long as it's replacing time that we would spend, say, watching television alone, as opposed to socializing with other people. I agree with this in theory, but the problem is that I don't think the assumption works in almost any case - online socializing is definitely replacing interpersonal socializing, at least from my perspective.

I'd like to hear from others on this. Am I making too big a deal out of all this? Is there nothing wrong with people occasionally focusing their attention on something other than what societal customs dictate it should be focused on? Are people still socializing in person as much, and I'm just picking up the extreme examples from the other end? Are we, in fact, going to be the best generation of adults ever because we were raised to not waste a moment of time?

--Ryan

Bravehearts for Cervical Cancer Prevention

Cervical Cancer is the second most common cancer afflicting women in the Philippines; second only to breast cancer. Worldwide, about 500,000 new cases and 250,000 deaths are reported each year. Over 80% of these occur in developing countries including the Philippines. But the good news is that the disease is treatable if diagnosed early.In light of this, Bravehearts intends to promote public

Review: Arrogant Worms @ Sanderson Centre

As longtime readers of this blog have probably (hopefully?) figured out, I'm a bit of a nerd. Thus it should come as no surprise to learn that I was a band geek in high school, and even less of a surprise to learn that I was a fan of the Arrogant Worms (pictured).

Last night, the Worms came to Brantford, so I figured I'd give them a shot - amid suspicions that the humour of their songs would carry over well into a live show.

I was blown away. Not only is the Worms' actual musical talent every bit as evident as it is on their CDs (not that they could be a serious rock band or anything, but they're very good at what they do), but they have excellent timing (both from a musical and a comedic standpoint), and surprising stage presence.

We didn't get to see the full trio of Worms, as bassist Chris Patterson recently had twins, which has apparently left him in a permanent zombie-like state. However, Mike Ford provided an excellent fill-in, surprisingly similar voice, and recurring punch line.

The setlist was solid - all the Worms' more well-known songs (I'm leery of describing them as 'hits'), such as 'Mounted Animal Nature Trail', 'Rocks and Trees', and 'The Last Saskatchewan Pirate', mixed with newer songs that I wasn't familiar with yet still sounded good, if less anthemic ('Big Box Store', 'Hollywood Girl') and two encores.

The between-song banter was also excellent, chock full of Brantford references (I will never look at Crazy Bill's Convenience store the same way again), and it at the very least seemed spontaneous.

In summary: good show. I'd recommend it to anybody.

And since I seem to remember having a penchant for grading anything I review, I give this a solid A. Absolutely nothing to complain about other than that I wish it could have gone on longer.

--Ryan

Who Watches The Watchmen?

When the superheroes we expect to protect us turn bad, what happens then?Things get more complicated amidst the backdrop of a US-Soviet Union cold war when the Comedian - one of the retired superhero played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan - got mysteriously murdered.Rorschach, a masked fellow Watchmen, tries to prove his personal theory on the situation by uncovering a plot against fellow members Night

Farewell Francis Magalona

Francis "Kiko" Durango Magalona passed away midday today at the age of 44. After battling leukemia since last year, the "Master Rapper" joined his creator today - March 6, 2009.We give our farewell to a great man who had been an icon in the Phippine music industry. Personally, I started to admire him back in the early 90's after releasing the song "Mga Kababayan Ko," which ticked the patriotic

A tribute to the recently departed

Yesterday was the NHL's annual trade deadline, also known as the day where hundreds of thousands of Canadians sit in front of a TV for hours, waiting for something to happen, even though it never does.

One of the biggest moves this year saw the Toronto Maple Leafs unload Dominic Moore to Buffalo for a draft pick.

Dominic Moore is not exactly what you would call a great player. He came out of nowhere to become a serviceable spare part on a team that has no chance of making the playoffs, endearing himself to Leafs fans because of the amount of grit he uses to make up for a comparative lack of skill.

But he also did this, so even I have to concede that he's pretty awesome.



--Ryan

A quickie

While studying for a poli sci midterm, I read this line in my textbook:

For more information on game theory, google the term on Wikipedia.

I don't know if the book's authors misunderstand the use of Internet jargon, or deliberately tried to stay ahead of the curve. Either way, when you're updating your textbook practically every year, you'd maybe be best served to not include lines which make people laugh and will surely be out of date before long anyhow?

--Ryan

Eraserheads Live! - The Final Set, Finally!

After the cut-short Eraserheads Reunion concert last year of August 30 at the Global City Open Grounds, the Eraserheads are back once more for their Final Set.With five days to go, Eraserheads members Ely Buendia, Raimund Marasigan, Buddy Zabala, and Marcus Adoro are set to meet again and rock the Philippine music landscape through The Eraserheads Live! The Final Set concert. It happens on March

Watchmen Movie Soon

March 6 will be the date when Philippine fans of the critically acclaimed comic book by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons - Watchmen will be shown in cinemas.Although its showing in SM IMAX is not pushing through, the Watchmen movie premiere on March 5, 2009 will. And guess what, yours truly just won a premiere ticket from an impromptu online contest on Plurk through Azrael late this afternoon.

It's a beautiful day in the neighbourhood

I'm generally a pretty cynical guy.

But not today.

For today, I have discovered a simple truth: people are awesome.

It started this afternoon. I went to the mall to get my printer's ink cartridge refilled (it's been dead for a few weeks). While waiting for the process to be completed, I went into Coles, figuring it was a good way to waste time. After a while, I found myself in front of the clearance shelf, where I quickly spied two books that looked interesting - one of which I've known about for quite a while, one of which I'd never heard of before - each for $2, far less than I'd expect to pay for anything at Coles. I bought both.

Content with my purchases, I returned to Island Inkjet, and was informed that my ink wouldn't be ready for another five minutes or so. So I stumbled into Sunrise Records - I'm not normally a purveyor of music stores, but it seemed like as good a place as any to kill five minutes.

While aimlessly browsing the Sunrise shelves, not looking for anything in particular, I noticed AC Newman's new CD (that's it above). For $9.99! So I took it up to the checkout, and the girl behind the counter said something indicating strong approval of my choice. For a possibly-mandated offhand remark, that brightened my day.

I went home, did some stuff. Then, at about 8:00, I placed a call.

For one of my journalism classes this term, each student had to pick a particular beat to cover (I got the media), and, among other things, conduct a half-hour live interview with somebody in that field.

I approached the Canadian Association of Journalists, seeing if there was anybody there who would be willing to help me out. Much to my surprise (although I might be overestimating the bureaucracy of the CAJ), I was directed to Mary Agnes Welch, the CAJ President, who is also the Manitoba legislative reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press.

The interview was originally supposed to take place Friday, but it was pushed back to today because it was apparently a hectic day at the Free Press.

So that was the call I placed. Nobody answered, so I left a message, shrugged, made a sandwich, and while eating the sandwich, maniacally tried to come up with a Plan B (the interview has to be done and transcribed by Tuesday night).

A few minutes later, the phone rang - it was Mary, I'd caught her in the middle of dinner, and now that she was done, she was ready to do the interview. For the next half-hour, we talked (well, she talked) about the future of journalism in Canada, the decline in the quality of journalism, the problems of political reporting, and other things of that nature.

This person, a full-time reporter (a busy enough job on its own), who is also the head of the Canadian Association of Journalists, was willing to give thirty minutes of her Sunday night to talk to a complete stranger for an interview that will in all probability never be published (and she was well aware of this). As I said, people are awesome.

I shouldn't blog when I'm in a good mood. It clashes with the tone of everything else here.

--Ryan

Baseball, golf...roller speedskating?

Some of you might not realize this, but there's a lot of politics behind the Olympics.

I don't just mean politics between different nations as far as lobbying to host the Games - even what sports get into the Olympics in any given year are politicized.

Baseball and softball were part of the 2008 Olympics, but they're being dropped for 2012, on the grounds that those two sports aren't popular enough around the world, and (at least in baseball), the best players don't take part in the Olympics.

Although nothing new is being added for 2012, this does leave room for the International Olympic Committee to add one or two new sports in time for 2016 - and seven sports have applied.

Baseball and softball are trying to get back in. This seems unlikely, although if the 2016 Games are held in Chicago or Tokyo - two cities where baseball is part of the culture, and two of the four finalists (along with Rio de Janeiro and Madrid) - there's a chance they could make a return. I'd bet against it, though.

Karate wants a spot. Something's always seemed weird to me about having martial arts in the Olympics - my limited understanding is that they're less about winning fights than about somehow becoming one with your body, or the universe, or something like that. Although maybe it's easy to separate that from the competitive aspect that comes out in the Olympics. I guess if judo and taekwondo are already in, there's no good reason to exclude karate.

Also on the list, squash. I will never, ever, ever understand the difference between squash and racquetball. Or the rules to either, for that matter. But I do remember that one of the best squash players in the world is a Canadian, so it gets my vote.

Golf was an Olympic sport about a hundred years ago, and is looking to make a return. They've proposed a 72-hole tournament for 60 men, and another one for 60 women, with the top 15 of each in international golf rankings qualifying automatically. While I'm sure an Olympic golf tournament would be a good money-maker, I'm less sure that golf requires any sort of athletic ability, and as such it shouldn't be a part of the Olympics.

The International Rugby Board is proposing a tournament of 'rugby sevens' (seven players on each side as opposed to the traditional fifteen, which I believe makes for a faster game, sort of like indoor soccer or arena football). Rugby is another sport which used to be part of the Olympics, and while it's not big in North America, it is popular around the world.

And finally, we come to what I can only hope is the joke of the lot, roller speedskating. It's weird enough to see BMX racing in the Olympics, but a competition to see who can make it to the finish line first on rollerblades? What's next, three-legged races?

Roller speedskating will not make it in, I'd be very surprised if baseball or softball did either. International golfing bodies are making a strong push, but I don't think it will pay off. Karate, squash, rugby sevens? I'm not sure which of these, if any, will make it in, but I don't exactly see the 2016 Olympics introducing any new glamour sports.

Wikipedia has a list of sports which could theoretically be placed on ballots like these in the future. Amazingly, it looks like it was actually the best of the best that applied for 2016 - the list also including such luminaries as bowling, chess, tug of war, and lifesaving!

--Ryan