Long Time No Blog

Chanukah is over, but my two week break from school has just begun fortunately.

On the third night of Chanukah I had some close friends over and I make some Turkey, Challah, and Latkes. We played Rummicub and make a makeshift Menorah our of tea lights. It was quite delightful.

On the last night of Chanukah, the night I arrived home to Toronto, I was given some gelt (chocolate money) from my mother. A couple pieces ended up in my back pocket with my house keys.. here is what happened...

Moral of the story-- Chocolate Melts-- Who would have thunk it...

A couple of nights ago I saw Avatar. It was a quality movie-- quite sad actually. The 3D was tres cool- there were quite a few WOW moments. I won't give away too much, but I have to say that glowing tree branches are sweet!!

Being home is nice, I have gotten all caught up on the Family gossip-- some juicy pieces this time. What is not nice is the temperature of my house- tres tres froid.

I can't wait to see what this break has in store-- stay tuned to find out :-)

Chanukah

Tonight is the first night of Chanukah- A time when Jews get together, light candles, eat delicious fried foods, and chocolate wrapped in gold foil.
Its a good thing my mum called me earlier today to remind me---
I can't turn my head without seeing a Christmas decoration, yet I don't even know when Chanukah starts.
I suppose I am grateful that the holiday isn't shoved down my throat.
It feels slightly more /special?/ this way.
I wish I was at home to celebrate with my family, but-- you know..School.

I do like Christmas decorations though-- Colourful lights, Trees with shiny things on them, red and green, Toy Soldiers... Pretty :-)

Also-- My body is starting to get angry at the 40 degree temperature difference between inside and outside.

Whenever Chanukah rolls around and I am wishing to be celebrating with my family I think back to my first year of university and how my girlfriend at the time made me an Menorah our of pipe cleaners.

...It was pretty awesome.

Want a good laugh?

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

ElfYourself is a great treat for a good laugh or a good source of procrastination.

In only a few simple steps you can upload a few pictures of you and your friend's ridiculous faces and you will get a great video of song and dance starring you.

The great part is that you can do it as many times as you want with as many pictures as you want and it continues to be free.

It also can double as an excellent holiday e-card...

What every university student needs...

Alcohol in pill form... More convenient alcohol!

(Credit)

"A researcher at a Russian university has developed a powdered form of alcohol that will soon make the consumption of vodka more convenient. From The Times of India:

Russian professor Evgeny Moskalev of Saint Petersburg Technological University has evolved a technique that allows turning alcohol into powder and packing it in pills. The new technique can solidify any kind of alcohol, including whisky, cognac, wine and beer
“Dry” vodka can be wrapped in paper and carried around in a pocket or a bag. Vodka in form of a pill would come handy at parties when “consumers” would be able to calculate their exact required dosage.

Verily, we live in an age of medical wonders."

(Article Credit)

What could be more convenient than a pill that makes you drunk...?

What would it taste like?

I am kidding-- this is the stupidest idea I have ever heard.

Bye Bye Busses- Hello Community?

Something really neat has happened in the city of London, Ontario--
The entire public transit system has decided to go on strike.
----- London, Ontario is a city with thirty thousand university students.

Problem? You would think so, but something-- actually kind of beautiful-- has come out of this predicament-- A new sense of community.

Mustangs Moving Mustangs is a contingency plan set up by the university to harness the power of people to get from here to there.

Here are the plans that they have put into action.

1. "Flag A Ride"- is a city wide game of tag. People with cars put the tags on their cars which mean "I can give you a ride." And people with no cars can get a tag to hold out at cars which mean "I need a ride." It sounds simple enough, but think about how in only a couple of days a pretty foreign concept of picking up a complete stranger, introducing yourself, and giving them a ride can become a generally adapted concept in a time of need.

2. Bike, Walk, Cab- I have noticed a lot of people out and about walking around campus and off campus. Much more than usual and something quite amazing happens when people have been doing some walking in the fresh air for a couple of days. They smile! People that you would normally drive right past, or ignore completely on the bus are now smiling at you, and maybe even going as far as a "Hi" or a "Sup?" I smile goes a long way and being forced to walk to school and looking around at the world you are living in-- dare I say-- is smile provoking.

Not only that, but the extra 10-50 minutes spent walking to school is 10-50 minutes that is spent...not on facebook. And time away from that site is a blessing- not a curse.

Even taking a cab is good for the community--why? I was riding in a cab not to long ago that the driver was telling me how much they are struggling to find business. I found it easy to sympathize with a man who has to feed his family and pay his bills and his rent on 100 dollars, not to mention the need to cover gas.

What could be better for business than thousands of students who all need to find a way home?

3. Carpooling/ Vans- what could be more fun than carpooling? Communal music/ conversation-- dare I say-- singing along? And the university is also doing a decent job sending out vans to populated locations to pick up and drop off student folk.

Now-- I am by no means pro-strike. This strike negatively affects many people in many ways, including myself. BUT when something like this happens-- I feel like it is a good idea to look at the smuff that the situation brings.

(Source)

Misty Night

On bench I look at the world as if, for one small moment, I am outside of it, overlooking.

In the far off distance I see vague images of buildings.
The buildings are probably empty for the day, or maybe filled with students studying, or janitors cleaning.

A little closer I see a vast field, in hill form. It contains one willow tree, just waiting...wanting somebody to sit underneath it, but it is nighttime, and the ground is too dewy.

I notice the streetlights, lighting the concrete path.
The lights also draw attention to the mist in the air.
The mist makes the scene look so surreal.

Two students are standing under one of the streetlights.
Crying, holding hands, while the taller one kisses the other one of the forehead.
A story told through body language.

A boy on a bicycle passes them quickly, he is going downhill, what is his rush?
Three others pass them and walk up the hill.
A laugh is heard out of one of them and the other two join in.

In the building across the way, a series of windows.
In each lit window, a student plays an instrument.
A bassoon, a trombone, a piano, a violin, and the last one is just singing - alone.
Each person, in a world where only the instrument and them exist.

A cloud moves in the sky.
The full moon reveals itself for the first time all night.
It smiles, but only briefly.
It likes the attention..

A squirrel runs up the hill and taps me on the foot.
I exist too... I suppose.

Old School Video Games!

Why are 8 bit NES games so much cooler than most of the games that came out in the last 10 years?

Smuff--- that's why!

An addicting game can be started at any time and become engrossing within minutes. All you need are the small things-- A catchy tune for the music. A guy in a red suit or blue or green (turtle) suit that jumps on things and maybe a smiling cloud or two. A few blocks that you break or stack on top of each other. A couple buttons... and you have a game that you can play not just until you have beat it, but forever...

The problem with most new games is they require intricate details, graphics, and story lines to be played or understood. The other problem with new games (the multi-player ones in particular-- I am speaking to you Halo!) is an amateur played doesn't stand an effing chance against anybody else because it is just level memorization. One you have the level memorized-- well-- why play anymore at that point?

I suppose NES games also have an element of level memorization (since there are few sporadic surprises in the programming), but their simplicity keeps them almost just as fun.

Don't get me wrong, great new games exist. And crappy old games also exist. But even the crappy old ones are hilarious. See: Angry Video Game Nerd.

Lastly-- Old school video games make for Frickin Sweet Clothing! --

(Credit)

Wordle

Today I discovered this neat website titled: Wordle

The site creates "word clouds." You can type in any website and it will take the words and turn them into a neat picture based on the frequency that you use them.

Here is an example of a word cloud using this very blog!

It looks like I don't use the word SMUFF nearly enough!!!

I love that something as simple as words arranged in a new fashion, with a little colour, is such a visually stimulating experience.

I think that I am going to put a Wordle in the sidebar and update it as the site updates so you guys watch the site evolve in a more unique way.

In other news, I feel like Peter Paul and Mary and their song, All Mixed Up, compliment this picture quite well -- so give it a listen.

-- Mary Travers you will be forever missed.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is out for Macs (or the beta version is at least)... You got download it here:

http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/eula_dev.html?dl=mac

It took nearly a year and a couple of months for it to move from being an exclusive PC browser to now being a browser available for the Mac as well.

The above image is from my first test run of the browser and I am excited already. This post was done using mostly the chrome browser and other than one minor glitch it seems to be pretty awesome and really fast...

Why is Chrome smuff? Google has been priding itself on simplicity and effectiveness since its humble beginnings and that is the main reason that it is doing so well.

Chrome doesn't fail to follow up on Google's philosophy. Just opening up the browser for the first time, I was asked where I wanted to import bookmarks from and the transfer to Chrome was as easy as that. Another thing I love about Chrome is not only is the URL bar a place to put in websites, it also doubles as a google search bar.

Other than that, Chrome is one of those items that just works and there is no fangled gadgets needed or special add-ons, which makes it a pleasure to use.

If all things were smuffed like Google is, the world would be a much less cluttered and stressful place...

I can't wait for the Google OS

Mini Me is Smuff

I feel like this picture speaks for itself. It has been circulating the interweb for the past 24 hours and why? Because of smuff!

People may not know that they find smuff fascinating, but they do, and this picture proves it. Now, obviously, this is a much lighter (more humorous) version of smuff, but it is still smuff. Anyway, I should probably write a sentence that doesn't have the word smuff in it... No, I'd rather not actually, smuff is just too awesome.

Anne Frank is Smuff.

Google Censorship is Smuff.

A terrifying reality has hit the internet: Google is finally censoring itself.

Now I hear many people saying, "that is old news man! Google has been censored in China for a while now."

Well I am not talking about censorship overseas, I am talking about censorship right here, in North America. Now, to be honest, I can't provide a first hand account of this phenomenon because I still only know about this occurring in the United States (please comment if you know about it happening in Canada), but it is still slightly disturbing to know that even Google has its own priorities, agenda setters, gatekeepers, yada yada yada...

Now, in case you haven't clicked the hyperlink above yet, the censorship that I am referring to is that of taking "The Pirate Bay" off of its search results or off its friends list...if you will.

Now, in case you aren't as much of a computer nerd as I am, The Pirate Bay is one of the Internets largest Bittorrent websites, which is a site where users host or "seed" content, be it music, video, games or software and others download or "leech" the programs and hopefully go on to help seeding the product when they have finished their download. It is the big share-story of the Internets.

Why did Google censor The Pirate Bay? Well, they recently were sued for "assisting in making copywritten content available." Check out their full trial results here.

For now, this is only smuff, they are still pretty reliable in finding most stuff, but now that Google is not afraid to censor itself, who knows what it will censor next?

An Introduction

Welcome! My name is Philip and this new blog is going to be about the smaller stuff in current events, the mass media, and life in general. My keyboard just broke...

It is amazing how one little piece of plastic on the bottom of the keyboard can ruin ones typing experience by unbalancing the keyboard on the table.