December 2003 – Page 3 – The Blork Blog

December 15, 2003Ed Hawco 19 Comments

Ho for the holidays…

Trashy toys for trashy kids

There’s a line of so-called “fashion dolls” called “Bratz” that seem to be quite popular this holiday season. In fact, it’s a huge franchise, with videogames, clothes, and 1001 spin-off toys. Something called “Family Fun” magazine has granted these tarts a “Toy of the Year” award for the past three years in a row.

That’s fine except for one thing — these dolls look like street sluts and bring kitsch to a whole new level. Now, far be it from me to criticize the stylistic preferences of urban kids here in the 21st century, but this is awful. I mean really — we make fun of humans when they dress like this, so why do we create toys (and their accompanying personas) with such bad taste, and then sell them to impressionable 10-year-olds? (I smell a Wal-Mart conspiracy… )

Been sucking on
a candy cane?

I mean really. Look, they even sport that most horrible affliction of contemporary maquillage, the BJ lip line. There doesn’t even seem to be any irony or sarcasm — they’re pushing this as a viable aesthetic, something cool, to aspire to.

What’s next? G.I. Joes with wife-beater shirts and mullets? Crack House Barbie?

December 12, 2003Ed Hawco 6 Comments

TypeList ordering

Finally! TypePad users can now order their typelists (those lists of things on the sidebar) alphabetically, and not just by date added. That means “a blog from a broad” is at the top of my list and “wordiness” is at the bottom. That top-to-bottom ordering isn’t value-based, it’s frickin’ alphabetical, which is value-free.

Previously, it just seemed random. As I added blogs to my blogroll [Reading (blog)] new ones would appear at the top or bottom, depending on how they were ordered. That is essentially meaningless, and is, in fact, value-driven, as it indicates who’s been on my list the longest. I didn’t want that. I wanted it alphabetical, so I could find blogs quickly.

Kudos to TypePad for implementing this. I, along with many others no doubt, requested this right back at the beginning of beta testing. It was my very first support ticket.

There’s one odd thing though — it is case-sensitive, which I think is a mistake. I use all lowercase letters in my blogroll, but if I put just one with an initial cap, it would not go in order — it would go at the top or bottom (depending on if I’m in “ascending” or “descending” order). That’s a real curse if someone mixes upper- and lowercase initial letters. The ordering will be busted and will appear nonsensical. Perhaps I should send in a ticket…

December 9, 2003Ed Hawco 20 Comments

You’re being watched…

That’s not the exit light.

I was at the AMC Cinema in the old Forum on Saturday night (screening room 5). Waiting for the movie to start, I passed the time by playing with my new camera. I noticed, when I pointed it towards the screen, that I could see — on the LCD screen — a light on the wall just to the right of the screen. Oddly, when I looked with my naked eye, I saw no such light.

I checked a few times to make sure it wasn’t one of the lights that run down the side wall, but no, there was very definitely a bright spot on the front wall that the camera could plainly see, but my eye could not. So I zoomed in all the way (even using the ghastly “digital zoom”). I saw a strange looking rectangular bug-eye thing that was definitely no exit sign.

So what the heck is it? I surmised that it must be some kind of infra-red light that the cinema uses to illuminate the room, so they can watch over us in the dark using some kind of infra-red viewer. I suppose they need to know if someone is getting naked, or if thieves are nabbing purses, or whatever.

Yo! Paranoia!

After the movie I walked down to the front of the room, and sure enough, there’s a panel up there, about the size of a shoebox, with a red lens over it and some kind of bulbs behind the lens. There’s another one on the left side of the screen.

So you’d better watch out or that hanky-panky you get up to in the back row might end up all over the Internet. Cinema spy cam!

Follow-up! An alert commenter (Rosco) has identified the device in question as an infrared “assisted listening device” for the hearing impaired. Not unlike this one. Mystery solved!

December 7, 2003Ed Hawco 2 Comments

Room with a view…

We’ve been living over here in Longueuil for about six weeks now. When we moved in the trees in the neighbourhood were in full bravado, boasting lush and replendant plumage of red and yellow leaves. By now the leaves have all fallen and been raked up, and the trees are bare sticks defensless against the cold night air.

While looking out the bedroom window at that cold night air on Friday, I noticed that we have a view of downtown Montreal from our bedroom. How did I not see that before? Obviously, the view is obscured when the trees are in leaf, but they’ve been bare for a few weeks now.

we're so urban

Anyway, here is a photo of our fabulous view through the trees. The lighted triangle is the illuminated pyramid on the Tour McGill building, a 32-storey office tower on Avenue McGill-College, two buildings down from where I work. The big yellow light is a streetlight in my neighbourhood, and the white light to the right of it is the spotlight on Place Ville Marie.