My brain hurts. xkcd. I shouldn't read horror, even horror-as-a-satire-of-critical-analysis.

Also, last week I finally saw Watchmen. It was like watching Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy again - a movie made by some people who obviously really, really loved the source material but had little idea how to make anything but a blockbuster action movie. Watchman strains when hammered into that kind of mould, even when the director tried to stay true to the source material. Nite Owl was wonderful, Manhattan was good, Rorschach was inconsistent, Silk Specter was bad, and Ozymandias was a freaking catastrophe.

Last night I found something hyper-cool online, so today I'm just taking my lunchbreak to post it:

part 1, part 2

Watch it before YouTube yoinks it as being copyrighted. I tried to do this as an "embed" but some bug in either FF, YT, or LJ meant that one of the videos kept replacing the other.

To explain what you're looking at: Larry Niven is one of my favourite authors. "The Soft Weapon" is on of his better short stories set in his "Known Space" universe.  This episode of "Star Trek: The Animated Series" is a near word-for-word adaptation of Niven's original story, but with TOS Enterprise crew in place of the original characters. It's remarkable that the story isn't changed further, since the various Known Space concepts of Slavers, Kzinti, etc. are totally out-of-place in the Star Trek universe, but are included anyways.  Weird to see a story I used to read over and over done up as a campy animated ST episode.

For more information, a Wiki article on the episode over at the Star Trek Wiki, Memory Alpha.

Okay, I'm just going to blog oodles of crap right now.

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I got a new job a couple of weeks ago. I'm working at CareLynx, the renamed/spun-off IT branch of Steelcare. It's very cool to be working for a company that actually does stuff. Not just booking systems and websites, but actually really does stuff. Steelcare is a warehousing and transportation company for Hamilton's big industry, steel. Now, warehousing sounds pretty dull until you realise that the average truck can only carry one or two rolls of steel at a time - this stuff is really big, so the hardware they use to move it around is impressive. We're not talking skids and forklifts here.

So I'm starting into the typical developer/analyst role, and it's looking like a good job. My coworkers are fun people, and the workings of the facilities themselves never cease to fascinate me. Although I'll need to get into golf if I want to fit in.

Weekend of Stuff

This weekend I discovered something incredisexy: we have a Canada Computers in the Dundurn Fortinos plaza. That blows my freaking mind. I've made lengthy detours on Toronto shopping trips to hit up their downtown location - the place is mindbogglingly good (though sketchy) for new parts.

Also, I went to The Movie Palace and saw A Scanner Darkly last night. Both the theatre and the movie were a visual orgy of lost potential. The Movie Palace is a wonderful old theatre with cushy seats and dinner-theatre-style benches... and a projectionist that managed to screw up no less than four times (first no sound in opening, then shaking mid-film, then flickering at the end, and then screen cutting out at the end).

The movie itself had tons of good scenes, and Robert Downey Jr. friggin' awesome. Even Keanu and Wynona manage to be quite good - a rare showing for those two. The directing, the script, the bizarre computer-rotoscoping-animation that was used for the whole film - all awsome. The problem was in the pacing. The movie just crawled, full of tons of random scenes of hilarious-but-repetative drug-induced ranting... and then ended very quickly, so fast you almost lost track of what happened.

Also, on Saturday we went to Niagara-on-the-Lake to visit some wineries. I got lost many, many times driving around - but we got a map towards the end that made it all good. I have to say, a quick guide for places to go:

1) Start off by reserving a tour of the Jackson-Triggs facility ($5). The tourguide is the best for a "crash course in tasting wine".

2) If you're interested in icewines, the Peller Estates tour ($5) that we went on included a glass of it, and they teach you how to drink it. I don't know if they do that tour all the time though. For those who don't know, icewine is exquisite if you know how to drink it, and the most expensive cough-syrupy-crap if you don't.

3) Strewn wines consistently kick ass. Their tasting bar is pretty minimal, but everything they make is excellent - much better than the bigger companies listed above. Plus, they make "Second Harvest" icewines, which are nice if you want a fruitier, cheaper, less freakishly sweet dessert wine (they're made by crushing the leftovers from icewines).

4) Visit Caroline Cellars. It's a small non-LCBO winery on the outskirts of NoTL. They can't compete with the big boys by the direct approach, but they make up for it with hospitality and creativity. All it is is a tasting bar and a store - but what a store. The tasting bar is free, and they have a long list of strange mixes and fruit-wines. We picked up a half-vidal half-cherry sipping mix, and Becky bought some raspberry dessert wine. They also had a wonderful zweigelt (a light but spicy red) I was tempted to buy, and a white wine (forget what kind) that they spiked with a little icewine to get it up to a mild dessert drink. Their main draw is the bizarre dessert and sipping wines, but they do have some nice dinner bottles too.