Category: Uncategorized

Film maker Daniel Brace decided to strap a camera rig to the head of his two year-old daughter Olivia before an intense session of hide and seek. The results are both fascinating and adorable. The video above shows us what happened during play time. Little Olivia plays the game of hide and seek on the edge, giving her father very little time to find a hiding spot.

For as long as I can remember the apartment unit closest to mine on my floor has been occupied by this older couple. I wasn’t sure if they were renters or owners but I’ve never seen them at strata council meetings so they must have been just renters. They would regularly leave their apartment quite early in the morning. When I was unemployed earlier this year and going to be at ridiculous hours, I’d sometimes hear the older gentlemen leave the apartment around 5am in the morning.

Earlier this week, I heard a bit more noise than usual coming from their apartment across my living room wall, that is to say there was actual noise since they were essentially silent all the time. I ignored it but then it continued and it sounded like furniture being moved or something. Curious, I stepped onto my balcony where right at the edge, I can partially see into their living room. It was there I realized that the couple had moved out, probably while I was in Montreal. From what I could see, there were boxes and bits of furniture arranged as if someone or some people had just moved in. Through various reflections in the windows, I could see at least one person moving about in the apartment but couldn’t make out if it was a male or a female.

I don’t know who my new neighbours are and if they are renters or new owners. I’m also not completely sure if it’s just two roommates or a couple. My bet is on a couple just by some of the furniture I saw in there. If I see them in the hallway, I will definitely introduce myself. Welcome to the 28th floor!

I was about two blocks from work this morning when I was at a cross-walk. There was only two other people with me. There was a guy my age and another older gentleman. The light turned green for us so we all started walking. The older dude took off ahead of us and veered off to the right to go up the street. I guess he was in a bit of hurry. I was about halfway across the intersection when I heard a commotion up ahead and to my right. I looked over in time to see the older dude trip on the curb and smack his head with a terrible thud on the concrete sidewalk. He had two books with him that flew out of his hands.

The younger dude and I walked over to see if he was alright. When we got to him, it was clear he was not ok. He had taken the brunt of the impact just above his right eyebrow. There was a flap of skin, possibly even flesh, cut loose above his brow. He had gotten up on one knee by himself but he seemed groggy. He began to complain that it was his damn shoes that caused the fall. I noticed one of his shoes were not laced up. He started to tie them up again but his wound started to drip blood onto the sidewalk. The younger dude and I looked at each other and silently decided 911 should be called. He pulled his phone out to start dialing. I turned my attention back to the injured who had managed to tie up his laces but was still continuing to drip blood onto the sidewalk and himself. It was then I noticed he might have also scraped and cut one of his hand as well. He started to stand but I told him that wasn’t a good idea and that we were gonna get some help.

The flap by the gash on his head was bright, bloody red and I could see a bump forming above his brow. By now the younger dude was talking to a 911 dispatcher who had asked us to find something press against the wound. We didn’t really have anything clean to do that with. Fortunately, the wound had stopped dripping. The older dude wanted to get up again but I told him it’d be best if he just sat along this construction fence on the sidewalk. He wasn’t exactly with it and I wasn’t sure if that was because of the fall or because he was a bit of a street dude (which his clothes seemed to indicate). People kept walking past us, tip-toeing around the blood, gawking at the guy’s open wound. Eventually, someone else stopped to help as well, it turned out to be one of younger dude’s co-workers. He thankfully had a package of tissues handy, which he gave to me. I pulled a wad out and helped press it against the dude’s head. He was good enough to hold the pressure by himself. By now I began to hear sirens in the nearby which was amazing. It’d be less than a minute since the younger dude got off the phone from 911 and there was already emergency units in action.

Both a small firefighter truck and an ambulance rolled up at exactly the same time. The firefighter truck had two dudes, while the ambulance had three people attending. One of the ambulance dudes was dressed in green hospital scrubs which was weird for me since I’ve never seen that before. The lead ambulance lady took control of the situation called off the firefighter dudes since I guess she determined five people weren’t necessary for a fall injury. They were really nice with him, collecting his books and walking him over to the ambulance. We got the go ahead to leave and we didn’t need leave any info or give any statements.

I had originally intended to get some breakfast to go  before heading into work and even the sight of blood had not turned my appetite, so I continued on with my original plan. Upon leaving the breakfast place, I saw the ambulance heading along Robson, which probably meant they were gonna take him to St. Paul’s on Burrard as it is the closest emergency department. I really hope the dude is ok. I’m not so worried about the gash as I’m sure that was cleaned and stitched up at the hospital. I am worried about a possible concussion or other internal injuries to his brain. I’m obviously no doctor but I’m wondering if he was held for observation for some time or submitted for further testing.

In any case, remember to stay safe out there and to help those in need when you can.

I am finally back home after a very enjoyable four days in Montreal. I am currently very tired after a long travel day. I need to get some sleep and catch up on all the E3 videos that I missed out while I was in transit. I’ll be back tomorrow.

The last time I was in Montreal was 24 years ago, which makes me feel like an old, old man. My aunt had six children which means she produced a lot of my cousins just on her own. I was in Montreal for the wedding of one of those cousins, one of the triplet cousins.

My triplet cousins are the youngest of the bunch and I think it’s been over a decade since I’ve seen any of them. The three older cousins I’ve seen a lot more since they’re out west frequently.

The wedding itself was a success and I enjoyed myself immensely. It was nice seeing all my six cousins, aunt, uncle, mom, dad, and grandma in one place. That’s a rare thing these days so it was quite special.

I’ve been here for three full days but I haven’t even begun to rediscover the city. There is so much to do in Montreal.

The interesting thing is that Montreal feels like a foreign country compared to the places I visited early in the year, namely San Diego and New York which actually are located in a different country. Montreal has a very European feel to it and with the influence of French everywhere, it certainly feels like a different country.

Anyways, I must head off to bed and sleep in this wonderful hotel bed for one more night.

I’m typing this from my seat at 34D on an Airbus 321. We’re about to push back from the gate. I’ll check in with everyone when I get to Montreal!

So I’m flying to Montreal on Friday morning to attend the wedding of one of my cousins. A few weeks ago when I booked my ticket I was thinking how pleasant it will be to visit sunny Montreal in early June. Since then, there have been numerous outbreaks of students protests, some male porn star on the loose who allegedly killed and dismembered another dude, massive flooding, and to top it all off, the weekend is now forecast with rain.

On top of that, my whole family is there already, which makes me wonder if I’ll have to shield them from protest violence, that creepy porno dude, and lots of water.

Video games featuring a zombie apocalypse seem like a dime a dozen these days but a recently released Arma 2 mod called DayZ has garnered my attention. The mod is an online multiplayer zombie scenario where players are dropped into the game in a large area where an unknown infection has turned the populace into zombies. I know this sounds pretty derivative and generic but there’s more. DayZ features more realism than most other zombie games. First, there is no concept of “friendly fire off”. In most multiplayer zombie games, like Left 4 Dead, weapons wielded by humans cannot hurt other humans. That’s why in other games, people just let loose even if their buddy is right in front of them. That’s not the case in DayZ. Just like in real life, if you accidentally shoot your buddy, that’s gonna hurt them. In other games, the concepts of food and water don’t come into play. No one needs to eat or drink to stay alive. In DayZ, it’s a constant struggle to scavenge for food and water. Sitting somewhere and staying put won’t work in the long run because you’re forced to go look for sustenance, just like in real life. Even death in DayZ is more realistic. Your character is allowed to keep all their weapons, ammo, supplies, maps, and equipment through different sessions as long as that character doesn’t get killed. If you get killed however, that particular character is gone forever. There’s no respawning with all the gear you collected. It can take days and days to collect better weapons and a sufficient stash of food but all that is gone if you somehow manage to get yourself killed. You can play again but you need to start all over again with nothing essentially.

The harsh realism built into DayZ has resulted in some fascinating observations into how people play the game. Apparently, most players die not because of the zombies but at the hands of other players. For a game where the zombies are supposedly the “main” enemy, the most dangerous threat to a player is in fact another human player. Some players would rather steal than scavenge for food and water and the easiest way to do that is to just surprise another player and shoot them. Because of the need for food and water, I’m guessing some players are making some desperate decisions in order to keep their character alive. The average life expectancy of a character is currently 27 minutes which might seem long for a multiplayer video game but considering how big the game space is and how spread apart everyone is, that’s a very short life span.

This type of behaviour reinforces my belief that if a zombie apocalypse were to actually occur, the greatest threat would not come from the zombies themselves but from other humans, as desperation and despair grab hold. A zombie is easy to read and is brutally honest. They just want to attack you and eat you. You can’t read another person so easily. Do they want my supplies? Should I trust them? What if I turn my back on them? Can I trust them? DayZ allows you to play out these scenarios. In the video above, a player narrates his thoughts as he encounters other players, nervously wondering if he should shoot first or have faith in his fellow man. Someone should write a paper based on the behaviour seen here!

Well, I’m gonna try that going to bed “early” thing again tonight. Wish me luck! I always wind up going to random links on the Internet instead of actually get extra sleep.

I’m getting a lot of random visitors to this blog recently. A lot of people are searching for “volleyball girls”. A few people have gotten here by looking for “pooping clear fluid”. If I were a betting man, I’d wager those two groups of people were having very different experiences at the time.

As I’ve written many times before, I have an e-mail address that I don’t use that was supplied to me by my ISP. I wasn’t the first person to have the e-mail address as evidenced by the large amount of e-mails addressed to people that aren’t me. I get mail from people who think I’m both a woman and a man (obviously different intended recipients). Usually the e-mails are fluff consisting of forwarded jokes, announcements of a home sold, or a movie night out. I just let those go by. Last week though, I got a very different type of mail.

A man had sent a very short but concise message to my account. Apparently, a woman back east had gotten into a very serious car accident and unfortunately, her injuries were grave and she passed away. The message went onto say her husband and her children were not in the car at the time. That was pretty much the whole message. The next message from this man simply contained a link. The link went to the web site for a funeral home. It was the obituary for the woman who had passed away. It contained more detail about this woman, including a picture, her age, the names of her husband and her two sons, and her surviving family members. It was really quite sad and I didn’t even know this woman. She was barely forty years of age and she was the mother of two sons.

I wasn’t really sure what to do with these messages. I clearly wasn’t the intended recipient. I didn’t know where to forward these messages on. I thought of responding to them and telling the sender they had the wrong address but I haven’t so far. I felt like I had stepped into some very personal details about a tragic circumstance and I didn’t want to them to know I had intruded into their lives (willingly or not). I know I should probably let them know they have the wrong address but it feels really awkward at this point. Doing the right thing isn’t easy all the time.