Wow

This helium balloon appears to be really moving. At the time this was filmed there was some thought that there may be a young boy in the basket on the underside of the balloon, apparently when the balloon eventually landed he wasn't there.

Riding the wave of fun

We went out for a brief tour of the Halifax downtown region this evening. Once we reached the Wave I insisted that we stop have take a few photos with the famous Wave. After my uncle had posed with the Wave Neil suggested that I climb the wave. It turns out that the reason Neil wanted me to climb the Wave was so that he could take a picture of me on top of the wave and also capture the sign requesting that people not climb the Wave.

I decided that I would like to slide down the wave to leave, so I did (as you can see in the following video).



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Soon after I slid down the Wave I realized that I had likely fouled my shorts on the trip down. It turns out that my suspicions were correct.



On our walk home we passed this sign at a local church. Talk about the Mother's Day spirit.



Before our walk was started our barbeque season. Much to my surprise the burgers were pretty edible.

More Exciting YouTube Content

Well it has been a few days since I posted my last YouTube video, so I thought I might post another enthralling video. I like to think of myself as a bit of a YouTube hit machine.

Actually, there is a slightly better justification in this this case. My Uncle brought a camera with him and was interested in how it worked and what could be done with it. Using the Flip Video camera and proprietary software I created this somewhat boring and poorly edited piece of something. Unfortunately the software wasn't quite as versatile as I might have liked (though I think that there may be a way around this problem).



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If all goes as planned you might even see a few more such videos from our upcoming touring activities.

A Few Quick Notes 296

-Today was a pretty great day. I know that at one point the high was expected to be 11, I am pretty confident that the temperature made it that high. Though there were a few cloudy periods, for much of the afternoon the sun was shining brightly. As far as I can tell, the forecast is calling for similar conditions for tomorrow.

-It seems that I have now fallen to 1/14 in this year's Roll Up the Rim to Win competition. My mid-week spurt of five cups seems to have done nothing to help me win. I am starting to think that my hear may not be in it this year, which is fine, as it likely means that I will buy less pre-made coffee (but more whole-bean coffee).

-Neil and I bussed ourselves over to local commercial district and made a few purchases. The main reason for making the trip was to purchase a step stool for $9.99, but we ended up acquiring a few other items while we were there. For a few product demonstrations check out the following video.



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We also purchased another bag of potting soil as well as two packages of seeds. Not surprisingly, I purchased some scarlet runner beans to replace the plants that I had to cut down, and also a package of tomato seeds so that I can try to grow some tomato plants for Neil.

-The plays we saw last night were much better than I expected them to be. A few of the plot points were a little far fetched, though I didn't always pick up on this until after the play had ended, but on the whole quite watchable. Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised, but I don't think that there were too many non-theatre students, or friends of theatre students, in attendance. Actually, I feel pretty comfortable that we were the only individuals without a connection to someone involved in the production.

After the plays we checked out the schedule for the music student's graduation recitals. If things work out well we might be able to catch a few of these free shows.

I should also mention that Neil didn't like my joke about being "more cultured than yogurt." I have no idea why he found this so troubling.

-Apparently this evening was 'Earth Hour.' For some reason I still don't have a good handle on exactly what this is. Maybe I will know more by next year, as it does seem to be somewhat of an annual event.

-I have a gut feeling that we will either be having chicken or beef for dinner tomorrow night. I guess I should try to decide in the near future as I will have to defrost something either way.

A Few Quick Notes 292

-Well today was a bit of a bust as far as the predicted snowfall was concerned. By the time 5:00 PM rolled around we did manage to get a little snow, though things seem to have largely wrapped up before 7:30. I guess we will wait and see, but I don't imagine that we will get too much more snow this evening, though who knows, maybe I will be way off.

-Given that we did get a little snow, I thought that I would try to make a time-lapse video of it accumulating. What I found interesting in the resulting video is that it seems that the snow is starting to melt near the end of the clip, though this could just be the result of changing light conditions.



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-A few years ago I broke my collar bone in a rather ill-advised, planned sledding collision. Since then, on occasion, my shoulder has made some strange grinding noises when moved. I was reminded of this phenomenon again today when I heard some noise coming from my shoulder as I was lifting my left arm. Fortunately these noises don't yet seem to be connected to a reduction of mobility, though I can only imagine what time and age my do to my shoulder.

-Yesterday, Neil, Rebecca, and I went to the apartment of their friends' to play a few board games. I was introduced to a game called Power Grid, which was pretty good. I also managed to get a game of Condotierre in, and somehow managed to win.

-For dinner we ended up going to a local Chinese restaurant called Mr. Chang's. All three of us were quite impressed with the food and the prices. Though I don't imagine that we will make weekly trips, I do imagine that we will return at some point in the future. It is nice to know that there is an inexpensive, quality food option nearby.

-The more I have been listening to the The Moth podcast the more I have been sensing its connection to This American Life. This week's episode of the The Moth podcast was the re-telling of a story that appeared on This American Life several years ago. A story by Mike Birbiglia was also recently on both shows. I guess this connection shouldn't surprise me as I learned about the The Moth podcast because one of its stories was featured on a This American Life episode.

-A few days ago my sister was kind enough to send Neil and I a link to Highlights' online joke repository. Boy do they ever have some gold material. Neil and I have been laughing about a number of these jokes since getting the email. Definitely check this link out if you are interested in quality internet content.

-I was shocked to learn today that the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals do not have the same owners. I wonder how they share the revenues? I also wonder how it feels to be on the Washington Generals, and how long people tend to stay on the team?

-Though I had to do in my living room scarlet runner bean population my bedroom plants seem to be doing quite well. Shortly after taking this picture I installed the preliminary string set-up to allow them to climb to my bedroom window. Eventually I hope to get these plants to climb across my bedroom window, and then back (though this latter trek may be wishful thinking on my behalf).



The other plants in my bedroom seem to be doing relatively well, though aside from the new corn and the thyme none have put on too much additional height in the past few days (though most have shown some form of growth)

Graffiti Removal

Today while sitting at my desk I noticed that the building next door sent someone to remove some of the graffiti on the side of the building facing me. After watching the process for a few minutes I noticed that the individual working on the task was actually from a company who seems to specialize in graffiti removal.

The process seemed to start by the individual coating the affected areas with some kind of liquid, presumably a solvent of some sort or another. After this was allowed to soak in for a few minutes the guy then proceeded to spray the previously coated areas with a pressure washer. Within just a few minutes the graffiti had been removed.

The photo shows the original graffiti as well as the process of it being coated with what I presume to be a solvent.



The embedded video is of the power washing of the graffiti. As you can see, the whole process only took a few minutes and worked quite well.



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Grasping at straws

Yesterday Rebecca suggested that some of my recent blog posts might be a touch on the weak side, and that I was "grasping at straws" to obtain content to keep my posts up to beat Neil in our ongoing blog-off (I am presently leading). I do largely agree with Rebecca, in some cases I have likely divided things into multiple posts that would otherwise been contained in a single post, and most importantly, have posted things that I otherwise would not have posted. Notably, I have posted some video content that I likely wouldn't have otherwise created.

So, to try and prove that Rebecca is correct, I give you the following video. Nothing but quality nonsense content.



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Also, I was reminded of this photo earlier today. I took this shot this past summer while on my way to Mistaken Point with my parents. I found this disembodied seagull wing while we were examining a peat bog next to a beach.



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More exciting time-lapse video content

Yesterday I happened to be making my way through YouTube's vast collection of videos and happened to stumble on a few time-lapse videos of things like snow storms or clouds moving during a thunderstorm. As you might have already guessed, I was quite taken with the concept , and as I have the equipment and software necessary to make such a clip I thought I might give the same thing a try myself. Of course, I didn't wait for any particularly interesting weather, or even for a day with clear skies or good clouds so the result is less than superb, but if you have 2 minutes you are willing to part with you can get a sense of how much cloud movement was going on today in Halifax.



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On a related note, I also happened to find a pretty neat video created by a photographer named Noah Kalina (included below). It seems that Noah has been taking and posting photos of himself every day since 2000. In 2006 the first six years worth of photos were turned into a video clip. While the subsequent photos are available online, they have not yet been added to the clip. It seems that he plan is to update the video every few years and continue the project indefinitely.



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The only thing better than watching corn grow is a dancing watermelon plant

In an attempt to be a little more original, I decided to try to film my watermelon plants last night, rathe than the corn. As you can see, these plants were a little more active than the corn. I have absolutely no idea why they keep going back and forth, though I presume that it has something to do with light.

Also, I should mention that this clip has a few effects that I did not mean for it to have, but don't have the time to change at the moment. Hopefully the damaged film effect won't be too bothersome.



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More more watching corn grow

It seems that I am not particularly imaginative these days when it comes to blog posts. A few days ago I kept posting tables with population statistics, and now it seems to be time-lapse videos of corn growing.

Anyway, original or not, here is another short time-lapse clip of my corn. Again, while not particularly dramatic, it is possible to observe a little movement and growth through the duration of the clip. Actually, one of the neat things about this one is that you can now see the second plant, though its growth is much slower than the original plant.



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More watching corn grow

After yesterday's relatively underwhelming attempt to capture the speed at which my corn is growing I decided to try again overnight, allowing me to observe the plant for a longer period of time, and thus observe more change.

As you can see, this time around the change is definitely a little more visible, even if the most noticeable part is the corn going from side to side, rather growing in the more traditional upwards fashion.



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Recent Gaming Activities

A few years ago while in Bristol, England I ended up playing a few games of Jenga with two Irish circus performers. This games are particularly memorable because I was introduced to a new strategy, speed Jenga. These two Irish guys advocated removing the blocks as quickly as possible, and just pulling instead of testing to see which blocks are loose and ready for easy removal. Since these games I have almost consistently used this approach, typically to good effect. Below are a few clips of a few of the games we played earlier today. As you will see, the speed method is frequently employed.



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(The preceding video was made using iMovie, as come standard on most Macs. And though I was a fan of previous incarnations of this program I can't say I am a fan of this version. Not only is it less user friendly, it seems to have fewer features or they are significantly more difficult to access. I can't imagine that I will end up using this version of the program as much as I used the old version unless I can figure out how to do some of the things that I was able to do in the past. This is really an unfortunate development.)

Later in the day Neil and I managed to play a few games of Scopa, which is an Italian card game played with a forty card deck. According to a half-Italian friend of mine this is a particularly popular game among old men, and is frequently played by these individuals while they are hanging out at coffee shops. Though I can't vouch for the veracity of these claims, I tell you that it is a pretty easy and fun two player game. I can certainly imagine sitting around and playing for hours on end.

Though we have only played one game so far, I would guess that we will be playing some Settlers in the near future. As we are quickly approaching Christmas I am not exactly sure when we are going to fit these games in (maybe tonight).

Non-Winter garbage disposal option

Soon after I moved into our apartment it became clear that we are positioned above the garbage and recycling dumpsters. Somehow, and it may have originated with our superintendent, the idea of tossing our garbage in the dumpsters from above was suggested. Though we were initially somewhat hesitant to try, it really did seem much easer.

As you can see, it really isn't that hard to hit the dumpster from the area just beyond are balcony. Going to the dumpster is for chumps.


Unfortunately, now that we are into Winter this isn't as nice an option. It seems that, at least for the next several months, we may have to actually walk our refuse down to the appropriate bin to dispose of it.




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A Few Quick Notes 237

-While today was passable for the better part of the day things eventually managed to go downhill. By this evening we were experiencing intermittent showers and gusts of wind, though this was nothing that I couldn't deal with.

-It seems that the video of the shopping cart races at Bubbles Mansion has been posted in a Trailer Park Boys forum. I am pretty impressed that within 24 hours someone had been searching for such videos and found mine. As far as I can tell it was the first one on YouTube to cover this year's event.

-As of today I have started to prepare my lectures for next week. Fortunately it seems that I will be speaking on a topic with which I feel relatively comfortable. On the other hand, I am still somewhat nervous about giving three hour long lectures. Hopefully they will be as successful as I imagine is possible. I guess as soon as I figure out the content I will have to start working on a few obscure jokes to fit in the lectures (it really is too bad that I am not covering the chapter on 'cleavages').

-Yesterday we purchased a full pork loin. At the moment it is rammed into the bottom of our fridge. It is likely that by tomorrow I will have to chop it up into pork chops so that we have some space and so that it doesn't go bad. I can't say that I am really looking forward to the idea of wrestling a 3 piece of meat on a counter that is only about 2.5 feet wide. The up side is that we should get about 30 pork chops out of the piece of meat. And it turns out that pork chops are very easy to cook.

Newfoundland Caribou

A few days ago my I took a trip with parents to Mistaken Point. Along the way to our final destination we happened to spot a few caribou along the side of the road. When we first spotted them they were quite close to the side of the road. Eventually, as can be seen in this short clip, they eventually moved a little further away.




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Clips from Habs Celebration

Below are a few clips that were filmed during the victory celebrations that transpired after the victory by the Habs in game 7 of the first round of the play-offs.

The first clips are of the crowd and festivities before the riot police started to break things up. The latter clips are of the initiation of street clearing tactics by the riot police.













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Curling Clip

Yesterday a few of us library school types went curling. Officially, this was a McGill ACA sponsored event, though there were many more library students than archives students. As far as I could tell, everyone had a good time. Hopefully this sentiment is evidenced in this short clip.



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My Life On Display

A few weeks ago my parents and sister went to Michigan to visit relatives. While there cousin decided to show my father and sister all of the jump rope tricks that he could do, though this demonstration was done without a rope. When my father returned he was kind enough to give me a demonstration of Owen’s routine. Since that time he has been willing to show people all of his jump rope tricks, of course always with the same rope that Owen used.



Today I made some more bread, actually another 10 loaves. This is a very short clip of me punching down and then kneading the dough.



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Detroit Metro Aiport Tram Video

This is a clip of a tram in the Detroit Metro Airport. My uncle decided to develop upon the theme of train's entering stations/ approaching platforms that I first developed with my wildly popular clip of a train entering the Mont Royal Metro station.



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A Few Quick Notes 68

-An absolutely beautiful day today, it didn’t even feel cold at all. I was walking around with my jacket open for the better part of an hour. Hopefully this is a sign of Nithum’s prediction coming true/

-The mid-term today went well. If I had known what to expect I probably wouldn’t have studied at all.

-I have had a bit of a sore throat today.

-I have posted another video on YouTube. This one is of my younger sister adding Mentos to Diet Coke.

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