Category: Journal

Anime North 2009

You know, I think [twitter](http://twitter.com/flying_squirrel) has alleviated my desire to do convention liveblogging. Sorry. The Internet connection in the hotel here kind of sucks, which isn’t helping.

I’ve also finally discovered the conditions under which Twitter is really useful:

* SMS updates (just re-enabled in Soviet Canuckistan this week)
* An event where lots of other Twitter users you know are at
* Said users being willing to update with things like “I’m at _____!” so I can find them if I want to.

I’m starting to see the value here…

Some AN bullets:

* Stayed up too late last night trying to find a 24 hour grocery store to stalk up on half-decent breakfast food. There’s gotta be one closer than the Metro at Sheppard and Bathurst.
* I’m having shoe issues, since my shoes died and I haven’t broken new ones in. Gonna see if Vibram Five-fingers will let me stand on concrete all day.

More content gold like this will be posted on Twitter!

Barely Have Time for Bullets

* I was thinking about running off to the [Kitchener-Waterloo Social Media Meet-up](http://www.meetup.com/KW-SocialMedia/calendar/10276730/) tonight, and then I realized I haven’t updated my blog in weeks. Some social media dude I am.
* But! I’ve been busy. I had a bunch of people over to my house on Sunday for a Victoria Day Garden Party, and that was pretty awesome. With tea and everything! It wasn’t nearly as organized as I wanted it to be, but I think people enjoyed themselves.
* Yesterday, I went to the Communitech Agile group’s [Test-Driven Development Coding Dojo](http://waterlooagilelean.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/2009-05-19-test-driven-developmentdesign/) and was actually convinced to get on the keyboard. Good discussion followed, including a [book recommendation](http://www.amazon.com/Working-Effectively-Legacy-Robert-Martin/dp/0131177052).
* This weekend is [Anime North](http://www.animenorth.com/), but I’ll be posting about that from the con, probably.
* I’ve started playing in a [Pathfinder](http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG) game. It’s like D&D for people who don’t want to upgrade from 3.5e to 4th. I haven’t played since 2nd ed., so I’m indifferent to that particular religious battle, but I get to run around in dungeons with my gnome sorcerer and that’s all that matters.
* I’m currently contemplating gardening. I have some issues with my current landscaping setup, so I’m thinking about ways to make it better. If only I could find a free weekend…
* Each one of the above probably deserves its own post, honestly.
* Oops, doesn’t look like #[kwsmm](http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23kwsmm) is going to work out for me tonight. Maybe I have some free time after all…

WWBA: Pasta Buffet for Earthquake Relief

> [Cross-posted at the Waterloo Wellington Blogger’s Association](http://waterloowellingtonblogs.org/2009/04/pasta-buffet-for-earthquake-relief.shtml). Ellen and I spotted the flier when we were at the Perimeter Institute concert last night and since they’re about a block away from work and I had to get some stuff done today, I decided to give it a shot. Then I decided I should introduce myself as a “local blogger” to get some details for the WWBA, so I posted this there:

I happened to see a flier yesterday for the [Cortina Club](http://www.cortinaclub.org/)’s all day pasta buffet in support of earthquake relief projects in Italy.

The Italian Cortina Club has been in Kitchener-Waterloo for over 40 years, helping to bring together some 185 families in the local Italian-Canadian community. Many of their members have friends and family in who have been displaced or otherwise affected by the [Abruzzo earthquake](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_L%27Aquila_earthquake) last week.

I made the trip down to check out their savoury spaghettata. A heaping plate of pasta is $20 ($10 for kids), and they are very generous with seconds. Not only that, these folks really know how to make pasta.

The Cortina Club is located at [22 Kevlo Place in Kitchener](http://maps.google.ca/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&q=22+Kevco+Pl.+in+Kitchener.&fb=1&split=1&gl=ca&cid=0,0,17011678365930826213&ei=HQfqSb6kGJrGM5HE0cwF&ll=43.410488,-80.442731&spn=0.011426,0.016479&z=16&iwloc=A), just off Wabanaki Drive. The buffet runs till 6pm. today, Saturday April 18.

If you would like to donate directly, they ask that you donate to the O.S.J Trust Fund L’Aguila Earthquake. They chose that organization on the suggestion of the Italian Consulate.

And if you miss today’s fundraiser, they’re planning a $100 a plate dinner June 13. Watch [their website](http://www.cortinaclub.org/) for details.

Easter Bullets

I thought maybe [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/flying_squirrel/) may have obviated my need for [bullet posts](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/tag/bullets/), but I like writing them, so you may just have to keep putting up with them. It’s lazy writing, but sometimes I have stuff to say and can’t be bothered to compose paragraphs. Sorry.

* **Happy Easter**!
* A co-worker is one of the minds behind [Zombie Jesus Day](http://zombiejesusday.org). **Happy Zombie Jesus Day**!
* I actually went to **church** this morning. The pews were pretty empty for the early, which was kind of sad, but apparently they were serving a free breakfast at the same time, which might have accounted for the lower attendance. There seemed to be a much more respectable number of people showing up for the second service.
* They had a “Used with permission” notice of **copyright** license for bits of hymns printed in the bulletin. I was a little put out by this, mostly because at least one of the hymns in question was about 130 years old.
* Easter **chocolate** count: 2 fund raising chocolate eggs from the church (it’s traditional… they’re very sweet), 4 truffles from [The Village Chocolatier](http://www.villagechocolatier.ca/Welcome.html) in Bloomfield and a bunch of low-grade foil wrapped eggs that I had to eat so my mother wouldn’t.
* The sacrifices I make…
* No actual **bunnies**, tho.
* Just finished watching the **Doctor Who** Easter Special, [Planet of the Dead](http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/episodes/S0_06). Lots of fun. A bit silly. I enjoyed it.
* On the way into Belleville, I took to listening [**Brotherhood of the Daleks**](http://www.bigfinish.com/114-Doctor-Who-Brotherhood-of-the-Daleks), featuring a blue coated Sixth Doctor and [[wiki:Charley Pollard]]. In an interview on the disc, writer Alan Barnes describes the writing of the episode thus:

> [[wiki:Terry Nation]], whenever he was going to do a new Dalek story, there’d always be some basic gimmick to the Daleks, where they’d have something new or had something taken away. I literally wrote down a list of mad ideas, one of which was they turn into communist, one of which was they’re high on drugs, and one of which was they think they’re [[wiki:Thals]], and I ended up doing all of them.

Indeed. I thought it was fantastic. :D
* There’s a series of [**Red Dwarf Specials**](http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/news/2009/04/10/back-to-earth/). I stopped watching Red Dwarf sometime around season 7, but I’ll give these a shot for old time’s sake.
* They came out with another [firmware update](http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2009/04/new-sansa-fuze-fimware-add-support-for-slotradio.php) for my **[[wiki:Sansa Fuze]]**, adding directory browsing support. I bought one after they released a firmware update with [[wiki:Ogg Vorbis]] support. With those, it catches up with [Rockbox](http://www.rockbox.org/) in terms of functionality, and I don’t have to feel bad about my Sansa e200s dying.
* Now all I need is them to add a feature that shows me which podcasts I haven’t listened to and it would be my ideal player.
* I’ve been (so far indirectly) getting involved in Kitchener-Waterloo’s nascent [**hackerspace**](http://watspace.pbwiki.com/). Actually, I think I’ll save that for its own post…
* I should probably start packing and head back to Waterloo soon.

Wiki Page Links 0.2

I hadn’t really thought about it for a while, but over the last 24 hours I’ve received two separate emails about my [[Wiki Links]] WordPress plugin.

Since it’s a holiday and I’m in Belleville, I have a little bit of free time. I fixed a bug that one of the people reported. It wasn’t linking to pages with ampersands. So I fixed that and similar string encoding problems. For example, I can now link to Wikipedia pages with apostrophes (Handy! Like [[wiki:Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog]]).

Around Christmas, I got an update from a user, [Daniel Llewellyn](http://www.thehoneymonster.net/). The patch has been available in the development version and I’ve been using it for months, but since I’ve been distracted by the new job and stuff I didn’t get it into a release. He added pipe (“|”) aliasing functionality like in Wikipedia, and edit links to new pages. That will be in 0.2.

You can get the new version from [the official WordPress plug-in site](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wiki-page-links/).