The Hilton Chronicle

Taking advantage of the recent trend in re-releasing movies of the distant past, Ridley Scott has released Alien: The Director's Cut. Although it is being released in theatres for Halloween, I'll bet this horror schlok classic will do well on the DVD market where extended versions of classic films seem to be de rigour at present. This is truely one of the scariest movies to come out in the last 25 years and I remember being freaked by it when I first saw it. With 11 minutes of added footage and some of the fat trimmed from the pristine print the film apparantly stands up well to the test of time. Critics claim that it is not the best of the numerous sequels made of this franchise but most contend that it set the tone for the onslaught of space/horror flicks that came later. Might have to check it out when it hits the rental shelves.

Posted 11:22 AM by Jeff

Wednesday, October 29, 2003

Winter Chills

The cold, cruel arms of winter have wrapped themselves around this burg for the second day now and as the temps drop to around -6, the icy roads prove hazardous to drivers. Oh well, I guess it had to happen although I predicted the snow wouldn't stay. Guess I was wrong.
Have been wrestling with the XP box and the evil Microsoft trying to overcome a glitchy problem with Internet Explorer. It just wouldn't start in limited user profiles. A breakthrough tonight, though. As I was scouring the net I came across and adware bulletin and the filenames looked familiar, in fact one was the same as what I was getting on the error message. After a little wrangling, I managed to delete that file from my system and lo and behold everything worked 100%. Once in a while, with patience, you can do it to "The Man".

Posted 11:06 PM by Jeff

Sunday, October 26, 2003

Sad Sign Of The Times

You know there is something wrong with the system when you have more messages in your Spam trap than you have in your In box.

Posted 7:03 PM by Jeff

Saturday, October 25, 2003

Weekly Rant

These post are becoming more of a weekly thing now as it seems to be getting more difficult to find time to sit down and write. All week I have been battling computer problems of one sort or another and have little time to just surf. Our mail client, Eudora, was acting up earlier in the week which prompted an attempt to install an upgraded version. I am painfully discovering that "upgrades" are more a thing to fear instead of something to embrace. The upgrade caused more problems than the original glitch and resulted in several "re-installs". I finally got everything working again so the emails should get through but now the program takes forever to load on the 98 box. Who know why? I also tried setting up a couple of user profiles on the XP machine only to discover that Internet Explorer 6 would not start on either of them. Any account set to limited use causes IE to balk whereas an administrator setting is no problem. Again, a mystery I am still trying to solve. Maybe it's time to go to Mozilla.
I see Jean Chretien finally got his wish after all his whining and was able to sit down, albeit briefly, with George Bush at the APEC sleepover where the pajamas looked really cute on Jean. I guess before he leaves the political scene he would like to at least once appear to be in good stead with "big brother" George.
Last week David Blaine, supposed magician, ended his 44 day starvation stunt and most of the world asked "Who cares...?" David, I think you should stick to your street magic as starving is a tough act to do especially with all the competition from children in the third world. At least they are not hanging from a glass box in downtown London. Now that is tacky!
And speaking of magicians, Roy Horn is still not doing so well and it looks like the famous S&R show is gone for good, although Siegfried is vowing that they will be back. Roy had a quarter of his skull removed to relieve the pressure in his brain.
It feels like snow here in Edmonton as the cold winds and grey skies have been bearing down on us for the last few days in a very threatening manner. I took down the trampoline today, a sure sign that winter is on our doorstep. Now I just have to get up enough motivation to get out and install the Christmas lights. Ug...

Posted 5:50 PM by Jeff

The NPR Top 100

Here's a super little site I came across while doing some research into, of all things, the music of Warner Brothers cartoons. It's the National Public Radio's "The 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century and features segments that background some well know musical milestones including the aforementioned Carl Stalling work for Warner Bros and other such notable stories as the origin of Brubeck's classic "Take Five", the stories behind Gone With the Wind, Great Balls of Fire, In The Mood and a great many others. Lots of enjoyable listening here.

Posted 12:23 PM by Jeff

Friday, October 17, 2003

Political History Making

With the weather getting a bit nippier out these days and the middle of October just passing us by I spent the day getting a few things prepped for winter including stowing the patio furniture and cleaning out the garage a bit. I just replaced the small entry door on the garage with the one that used to be on the front of the house. It was going to be trashed anyway so I salvaged it to replace the old garage door that was slowly falling apart.
I just installed five more security updates for Windows XP which are now being released once a month instead of every week. I guess Microsoft thinks that they can save time by giving us five at once instead of one every few days. However, I wonder how vulnerable we will be while we wait for the monthly "fix".
Looks like the PC and the Alliance are making political history by going ahead with their merger although they don't want to call it that. I guess the PC term is "creating an new party which will be greater than the sum of it's parts." They're thinking like Microsoft now... better to have one big group of boneheads instead of a bunch of small groups of boneheads. Makes for more efficient incompetence. Actually I shouldn't be so crass. The new party will have their hands full when a new election rolls around with the Liberal power team to go up against. T'will be an interesting spring.

Posted 10:17 PM by Jeff

Saturday, October 11, 2003

It's A Jungle

The posts have been pretty dry on the old site for the past week or so and for that I apologize. Working midnights and not much happening contributes to a certain famine of ideas. Nonetheless, I have a few observations to humbly offer.
Not that it is real news to anyone, but the Microsoft operating system is buggy and full of holes. Yes, we all new that but now Microsoft is actually coming out and admitting it. They are saying the piecemeal detect and patch method of security control is a feeble attempt if anything to bolster up the OS. Now they are talking about, if I understan this right, a free system upgrade for XP and 2000 users some time next year. I have my doubts that it will be any more secure than the existing version, but if it's free I'll take it.
Well, just for the fun of it I have added a new photo album over on the left which highlights the so called "pets" that have managed to weasel their way into our household. View at your own risk.
The Liberal caucus is running out of steam in Ottawa as Cretien's leadership comes to a close. The caucus meeting ended a half hour early the other day with MPs saying "There just wasn't anything more to talk about." Sounds like a typical Friday afternoon on the Hill. I guess we have to wait for the Paul Martin Show to begin before any "real" business is done now.
And another murder in Edmonton this week, just blocks from our place. We are thinking of renaming Millwoods to East L.A.
Tomorrow we are celebrating Thanksgiving with a big turkey dinner and a few people to share it with. Dianne has been making pies all day today for dessert and the odour has been wafting into the bedroom making it tough to sleep. Can't wait...

Posted 8:41 PM by Jeff

Wednesday, October 08, 2003

Aaanold Wins!

The "Terminator" is now the "Governator". And with the mess that California is supposed to be in it will be interesting to see how Arnie handles it or whether the people will be "terminating" him in another 14 months.
With one big huge gust of wind yesterday, most of those gorgeous colored leaves are off the trees and all over my lawn, where they don't look quite so gorgeous. It doesn't take long for the seasons to change around here and before you know it we will be pushing snow off the driveway instead of grass clippings.
Thanksgiving is coming up this weekend and the big challenge is to be able to round up all the kids at the same time for the big feast. We may have to have multiple seatings to get everyone fed when they have the time.
We finally managed to have a go at the crabs last week and although they were very tasty, they sure were a lot of work. I find it hard to understand how maritime people have the patience to crack those little critters open for such a tiny morsel of meat. I guess I'm a true prairie guy where a big slab of beef on my plate is faster and easier. No wonder seafood is such a delicacy, you almost have to be a brain surgeon to eat it.

Posted 11:31 PM by Jeff

Tuesday, October 07, 2003

Help Wanted

The Mirage Hotel Casino in Las Vegas is looking at huge losses in revenue after the tragic mauling of Roy Horn, half of the illusion's team of Siegfried & Roy, by one of the shows famed white tigers. Roy still remains in critical condition in a Las Vegas hospital and the show has been shut down indefinitely. The Mirage hotel management is looking for a replacement act to take over but is fearful that it will lose upwards of $40 million a year in revenue from the world famous act which has played to sold out audiences since 1990. Our thoughts and support go out to Mr. Horn for a speedy recovery. In the meantime, a replacement act has to be found and I would like to suggest that maybe they should hire our own Jean cretin who is going to be looking for a new job in a few months anyway and comes highly qualified as an illusion's...He has been making our tax dollars disappear for years.
In the "American Politics is a Joke" department, today is the day we get to see which clown will be elected as Californians new governor. I have no idea how this recall thing is suppose to work, but it has caught the fancy of the entire world. Everyone is wondering if ARIN "The Terminator" Schwarzenegger will get elected and what kind of governor he will make. The jokes about him abound, no need for me to witisize here, but it makes me reflect on how many show biz personalities have made it to public office in that wacky country to the south. First it was "Ronny" Reagan, the old Hollywood actor, followed by "Dirty Harry" Clint Eastwood as mayor of Carmel. Other notables were Sonny Bono and WWF wrestling star Jesse Ventura. So why couldn't we have some Canadian stars for top bananas in our country? How about Gordon Lightfoot as Mayor of Toronto or Premier of Nova Scotia Stompin' Tom Connors. We already have Tommy Banks as senator and Adrienne Clarkson as Governor General. Could you imagine Peter Mansbridge as Prime Minister? Red Green and Tom Green would be in the cabinet as minister of finance and defense respectively, and Rita McNeil could hold the portfolio for health and fitness. Well, the possibilities are endless so let's just leave it there. Whereas we joke about having this kind of government in Canada, in the States it's becoming a reality. What's next William Shatner for President? Better beam me up, Scotty.

Posted 5:40 AM by Jeff

Sunday, October 05, 2003

Fall Colors

We took advantage of the fantastic weather this weekend to take a jaunt down to the river valley on our bikes. We had been looking forward to this all week and we were not disappointed. I wanted to try and get some shots of the trees in their fall colors and although the leaves were already starting to fall, the scenery was breathtaking. I took lots of shots, one of which is included here:

Today we capped off a great weekend by taking in a Dixieland jazz concert featuring our Newfie drummer friend, Rocky. It was great as usual. Now I go onto a midnight shift for seven nights and I feel like a miner about to drop down into the bowels of the earth not to come up for a week.
During the weekend I gave our front lawn it's first and much needed mow since it was installed. That should probably be it for the season and will not need doing till the spring.

Posted 11:20 PM by Jeff

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