Mike DeWolfe : The Daily Edition

Tourist friendly Victoria BC (aka the Blackpool of Canada), isn't friendly to local residents. Best Western hotels, the Strathcona Hotel and Swan's "Hotel" are either turning away local residents from their hotels. In some cases, they are 'vetting' locals who want to stay in their hotels. This came to light when a local couple booked a hotel room for New Years Eve. The hotel, upon learning they were locals, cancelled their booking. So, rather than stay in town and go to sleep in a local hotel after a few drinks, they would rather not have their types. The irony is that a number of these hotels sport bars at street level. The message from these hotels is clear: given the option between driving drunk or sleeping it off at a hotel, the hotelliers want you to hit the road.

Number of times "Christmas" is mentioned in the script for " It's A Wonderful Life " : 36 Number of times "Christmas" is mentioned in the Holy Bible : 0

B uy O ne G et O ne H alf O ff (aka 1/2 off) is NOT BOGO. It's BOGO HO, or BOGO for Ho's Ho ho ho, everyone. Merry Christmas.

As a kid, I wanted to draw and write comic books. Well, I suck at drawing. I also kind of suck at writing comic books. In later years, I wanted to write movie scripts ; but that's still a work in progress. As a side effect of being a Dad, I know watch about 20hrs. of cartoons a week. Could I fuse by wish to write for the drawn world and the motion world into a wish to write for the motion world into a writing for cartoons? These blog posts would give me some help in that department: Step 1: Writing For Cartoons Step 2: Be A Cartoonist Step 3: POV Step 4: Origin of the "Cecils" Step 5: Humor and Structure Bonus #1: Scene planning for TV Bonus #2: Scene planning for TV : 30's Step 6: Spelling and Grammar Step 7: Continuity Step 8: Writing Gruntspeak

Why is this girl frowning? This cute, cuddly marketing monster isn't made in Canada; or Indonesia. It's made in China. The Olympic committee in their infinite wisdom decided to get their mascots produced in China-- the land of lead-- rather than go somewhere less dubious for the manufacturing. Olympic_mascot_tag Originally uploaded by triviaqueen Why would they do this? Could it be that they were budget conscious? You know, make them cheap, sell them cheap so that kids the world over can, uh, cuddle their Quatchies.... Nope: these stuffies sell for $30 each-- something like two to three times the price of the stuffed animals of a similar size. So, the price is high; the manufacturing is done in the same country that gave us toys laced with rophypnol. Where is the price difference going? Right into the pockets of the IOC and its local cronies. Your kids' toys are made in China but this plan was hatched at VanOC.

This from wikipedia : An ashcan copy is a term that originated in the Golden Age of comic book publishing, meant to describe a publication produced solely for legal purposes (such as copyright ), which was not normally intended for distribution . The word "ashcan" is an older synonym for wastebasket, trashcan, or other garbage receptacle. The implication is that the printed material will go straight from the printer to the trash, which was often the case. Ashcan editions frequently contained unlettered stories, unfinished art or even just whatever wastepaper had been conveniently available at the time. The goal in making them was to get something out with the wanted title slapped on as quickly as possible so that the publisher could make some claim to having been the first in print if a competitor tried to publish a similar title. One example is Flash Comics #1 by Fawcett Comics which introduced Captain Thunder (later Captain Marvel ). This particular example of ashca...

Start with Colin and Justin; and their Home Heist Show. What happens next...?

I was going through Chapters on Thursday night. I hit their discount table: lots of sad books on the cheap. I came across this book: a book full of ads for non-existant products. It seemed like a great book. I thought: "What a great book." "Gee I wish I had thought of this" "Maybe I could do something like this" "Of course this book has already been done" "And it ended up on the discount table." "So my idea would be for a book destined for the discount table." "That would suck." "I'm not going to do this." I dropped the book and moved on. Epilogue : When I went to the cashier, I asked about the U.S. vs. Canadian price (Canadian prices are about 25% higher than the U.S. price) with the Canadian dollar worth 10% more than the US-- so Canadians are getting grilled 40% for privilege of having a middle-man (Harper) between us and the Bush Dictates. I know that retailers have stock from several months ago. ...

Doctor Who is not dormant. Thirteen episodes of the "Infinite Quest" are available via Youtube. All Hail Youtube

BSG : Razor is coming to televisions worldwide. If you can wait, whet your appetite with these Razor Flashbacks

What's happened to the Canadian dollar since way back? Wonder no longer: the Bank of Canada skimmed some cash and wrote this long history of the Canadian Dollar. For me, all I that's gotten me interested is that Curious Comics and Legends are selling all of their comics at US Prices (until people bitch that the Canadian Dollar now buys $1.07 US) Introduction The First Nations (ca. 1600-1850) New France (ca. 1600-1770) British Colonies in North America: The Early Years (pre-1841) Currency Reforms (1841-71) The Canadian Dollar under the Gold Standard (1854-1914) Canada off the Gold Standard (1914-26) Back on the Gold Standard—Temporarily (1926-31) The Depression Years and the Creation of the Bank of Canada (1930-39) Canada under Fixed Exchange Rates and Exchange Controls (1939-50) A Floating Canadian Dollar (1950-62) Acknowledgements Return to a Fixed Exchange Rate (1962-70) Return to a Floating Rate (June 1970-present) Concluding Remarks Appendix A...

I made the dubious choice of going to Digg One page this piece: http://www.howtodothings.com/automotive/how-to-cook-food-on-your-car-engine You might wonder why you would ever want to cook food on your car engine. I say, why wouldn't you? It can be a practical solution on long road trips: Now you won't have to eat that crappy fast food. Or it can be something to try just for fun. It's really easy to do. All you need is aluminum foil, a car and some food. .... Then another link on the same page has this: http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUST5871220071023 TOKYO (Reuters) - If you're stuck in traffic when Mother Nature calls, Japan's Kaneko Sangyo Co. has developed the loo for you. The manufacturer of plastic car accessories drew back the curtain on Tuesday on its new portable toilet for cars. The toilet comes with a curtain large enough to conceal users and a plastic bag to collect waste. "The commode will come in handy duri...

Take a geek, some questionable engineering and rockets. Add hype. Launch.

Sunday night, I was lucky enough to see the Blue Man Group live. They were awesome. Wanna sample? Look no further than YouTube...

. Today's pet peeve: bad taxi drivers. The idiot pictured just randomly stopped and took forever for the his 120 year old passenger to disembark. Park? Use the passenger zone? This monkey driven cab doesn't fly that way. So eventually the old guy gets out and disappears into the medical building. I was stuck parked there behind the chimp, so I took photos of the area. Monkey boy hopped out of the car "Why are you taking my photo. What are you taking photos for?" (as you'll note-- I have no photos of Washo, just his immobile cab.) Is this why cabbies seem to earn $10,000/year? Are they always brachiating around their cab instead of driving people for money? Maybe...

Crappy Gelatin Originally uploaded by dewolfe0001 I was excited to find a Halloween shop open in Hillside Mall. They had gelatin! Like latex, but not reactive-- all of the quality prosthetics you see in Hollywood are made of gelatin. It's great stuff. Well, not if you make my misake and buy it from InCharacter Costumes and Makeup (usually based out of Jinglepot Road up in Nanaimo). I bought this small container of gelatin. I took it home to see what it was like. It was solid-- it was a waste. So I tossed my money. InCharacter Costumes makes sure that all of their sales are final so that they can sell old and useless make-up. So, caveat emptor-- DON'T BUY MAKE-UP from their fly-by-night set-ups in Victoria or Nanaimo. If you want great high quality stuff, there's always Tony's Trick and Joke Shop on Broughton St.

My quality of life is poor: I have food, clothing, shelter and a good paying job. I also have a steadily rising set of demands from all corners. So, while people go out and do interesting things with their free time, instead I suffer. My co-workers will say, "aren't you supposed to be off today?" What can I say: misery without accomplishing goals is a living death. So I might as well be working. Today, I took the day off and promised to take my daughter kayaking. Ooh! The danger. Climb into the kayak, paddle around an area that is devoid of everything except for two inner harbour ferries and the odd kayak. A whole slough of people were in a state of panic that I would take my daughter out to paddle around. They were waiting for post-kayaking calls to assauge their terror. I haven't killed anyone, lost a limb, set a house on fire. I have the same number of daughters I started out with. I haven't raised a gimp. My bills get paid. I have to assume that this perpetua...

Another invention from the re-invention mill. But this one has super-cool potential: Todd McFarlane (Spawn) and Josh Olson (A History of Violence) have pitched an idea to Warner Brothers about a "revisionist" take on L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz. Olson will write the screenplay and McFarlane will produce. Variety reports that they are still working out the tone. They want it to be "Harry Potter dark, not Se7en dark." The characters will all essentially be Baum's but Olson and McFarlane will be creating plots all their own. Olson also wants this new version to be more akin to Lord of the Rings and promises Dorothy will be more like "Ripley from Alien than some helpless singing girl." These are all very helpful illustrations as far as what they are trying to accomplish, but don't you just hate it when writers/people speak entirely in references?

This from Wired News: MJ Safety Solutions is a company banking on irrational fear to push it's bullet resistant Ballistic Bookbag, a 20oz schoolbag with an integrated ballistic panel. How likely is it that your kids will end up getting shot? According to MJ Safety Solutions' own figures, 229 deaths have occurred in school shooting since 1999. That sounds pretty bad, right? Compare that to 838 deaths caused by falling out of bed in 2003 alone . Or accidental strangulation or suffocation (still in bed): 497 deaths in 2003. Still, if you have to protect little Johnny from an almost non-existent risk, the Ballistic Bookbag will get the job done. Check the video to see the $175 bag shrugging off 9mm hollow point bullets. Who can afford a bulletproof backpack but still can't afford to move their kid to a school where they can't be shot? Drug dealers? For that matter, wouldn't a piece-of-crap get a few of these (they may even purchase them rather than steal them), cut out...

On this special episode of NBC Dateline... a reporter in cognito is outted at Defcon 15. She could have gotten a press pass, but she declined. She decided to sneak in a digital camcorder. Then, the speaker urged people to usher her out. Then they hounded her like they were reporters. Tee. Hee.

Ten years ago, we were shocked by a murder-suicide that took Phil Hartman. It has emerged that Phil Hartman's wife was re-introduced to cocaine by his then-co-star Andy Dick. I thought that Andy Dick was an annoying and sometimes amusing C-lister. Instead, I have come to the conclusion that he is an idiot: the idiot responsible for the death of Phil Hartman-- responsible as surely as if he had loaded the gun himself. Instead of loading the gun, he loaded the murderer. Will anyone avenge Phil Hartman's murder? It turned out vengeance comes in a dumpy package: According to the New York Post, the animus between Jon Lovitz and Andy Dick, which has its roots in the slaying of Phil Hartman a decade ago, exploded in a fight last week at an L.A. comedy club when Lovitz roughed up Dick. Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada said, " Jon picked Andy up by the head and smashed him into the bar four or five times, and blood started pouring out of his nose. " Lovitz and Dick reportedl...

Come to Victoria BC. Did you want to get loaded in our Inner Harbour: booze up, shoot up, take a dump in the water? Victoria has it all! Police aren't a problem-- just cross the Johnson St. Bridge and the police will forget you exist. After all, what do you want to do? Do you want to murder someone? Why not!

I am closing in on 40. April 26th, 2008. It's a Saturday. I usually make a small matter of my birthdays. Instead, I want to make a big deal out of this one My plan is start training for it-- like a marathoner or a mountain climber or WC Fields with an Oscar award in one hand and a wad of $20s in the other going into a brothel. I would like this to be a party of epic proportions-- not out of ego, but out of appreciation of the milestone. Unlike my bachelor party, I will not allow anyone to zonk me out in a strip club at 10 PM (Tim....) Here's a weird thing I noticed: people I get along with (with exceptions) all turn 40 on a Saturday. Is this a fluke? Is this evidence that I am too good with math? You be the judge. Wanna compare? Check out time-and-date to see what day of the week you hit the 40 on.

What could go wrong when you set off fireworks? Nothing. Nothing at all.

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An ode to the lack of coffee: For a long while I have been convinced that coffee was doing me harm. I have drank coffee off and on from when I was in my teens until 11 years ago when it became a daily ritual. Concurrent with that ritual, I have had lots of jitters and anxiety. LOTS. About three years ago I tried to stop coffee. I went cold turkey. At the end of the first day, I had a headache. On the second day, my heart was pounding and I was dizzy. I was in the throes of chemical addiction withdrawal, period. By the fourth day, I was sure I was dying and I rolled the dice that I wasn't dying. I got a coffee and in 30 minutes I was feeling a whole lot better. I put the yoke back on and continued my coffee drinking ways. I knew that coffee was toxic stuff: it tasted good, but it was bad. It wasn't a crutch to let me work long hours-- in fact, I used to sleep less when I had less coffee. About a month ago, I started the process again. I went from a pot of coffee a day on some da...

Check out how you can share this pithy graphic with others. Click here . No, no, back there .

Fabulous! I want to let you in on a lesser secret: my wife and I are trying to be fabulous! Not fabulous. Fabulous!!!! We don't need to be famous. I don't need to be the head of Google. We think we want a fabulous lifestyle. "Think"? As we close in on this concept, I looked up to the sky thought about the clouds. Wispy, maybe a kilometer across or more and able to blot sunlight from the land. Up close: they are almost invisible-- just vapour with more moisture. Perspective-- distance-- gives clouds their condensed and weighty appearance. Up close, what does Fabulous look like. As we close in on Fabulous, I would what it could look like. My general plan: get Operation Fabulous off and running: something technically manageable but may require some work and effort (fun, fabulous work). The details I cannot share at this time apart from what we've already alluded to . If all goes well, in about 18 months I will likely post another rant on the other side of the singula...

Humans and sharks have characteristics and genes in common, including reproductive features, and their immune systems. This from The South's ABC: Some 450 million years ago, sharks and humans shared a common ancestor, making sharks our distant cousins. And according to recent research, this kinship is evident in our DNA, as at least one shark species possesses several genes that are nearly identical to those in humans. The elephant shark's genome is so similar to ours that we wind up having more in common with it, genetically speaking, than with other species, such as teleost (bony skeleton) fishes, which are nearer to us on the evolutionary tree. "This was a surprising finding, since teleost fish and humans are more closely related than the elephant shark is to humans," says lead author Associate Professor Byrappa Venkatesh. Read on...

I am watching a show based on the Gavin Menzies' book: 1421. I thought: who got here before 1492? There is a lot of controversy that Colombus, wasn't the first, but just how much a Christopher-come-lately was he? Let Wikipedia detail the accounts of pre-Columbian arrivals: For convenience's sake, events will be preceded with the following key: H (Historical - currently accepted as fact) A (Ahistorical - insufficient evidence; postulation) M (Mythological - derived from cultural legend or religion) At times categories A and M overlap as often the destination is never fully described beyond 'a large landmass' (and never described with enough detail to conclusively prove it is in fact the Americas). Furthermore, events are often exaggerated in the retelling, thus lending a legendary quality to an ahistorical account. To about 47,000 BC ( A , H ) - Some archaeologists have presented evidence suggesting pre- Clovis culture peoples arrived in America as long ago...

This from Craigslist: Chuck Palahniuk Reading Reply to: sale-339331531@craigslist.org Date: 2007-05-27, 11:07AM PDT I have a spare ticket to the sold-out Chuck Palahniuk reading on Monday May 28. You can have the ticket for free, but only if you're a really hot chick. I'm not going to try to get you in the sack or anything; I just like hot chicks and I like being seen in their company... it makes me feel like a big man. If you're a guy, or a chick who ain't hot, you can't have the ticket. I'll just throw it away. I'm like that. And it's good. So... the ticket is yours for the taking just for being a hot chick. And if you wear a vintage cocktail dress I'll take you to dinner, too. We don't have to converse. This was the email I sent in reply: to sale-339331531@craigslist.org date May 27, 2007 12:26 PM subject I'm your lady mailed-by gmail.com I will promise to wear the slinkiest cocktail dress you have ever seen. Let me know where w...

Electronic Arts Inc. has sold the movie rights for "The Sims," the best-selling computer game, of all time to 20th Century Fox, Variety said on Friday. "The Sims" is one of EA's biggest franchises and, including sequels and expansions such as "The Sims: House Party" and "The Sims: Vacation," has sold nearly 85 million copies since it debuted seven years ago. It's official. They are 100% tapped out. Projects I'm waiting for in 2008: Index : the movie after the book but before the cover Trailers : 40 previews of itself in a recurscive death spiral Big Mirror : The silver screen will be replaced with a very large mirror, slightly tilted so that the audience can see itself until they leave. Projectionists' Day Off : the bulb is fired up but no film is run through. If I were you, I'd wait for the sequel-- it has big guys who sit in the back and make shadow puppets. Damn: sorry, I just spoiled it. Transformers : more than meets the...

So here's the deal: your at your office. It's Friday afternoon-- maybe you're new to your job and you're going to push your limits. Go to : http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~sf-papercraft/Gallery/at-at/at-at.html Print about 20 copies of each page Get out the scissors and the uhu stick Stage a terrific battle. Go home for the weekend. Maybe they'll take you back on Monday.

Supplies for my Cthulhu Sculpture Voting starts in 0 minutes

This from CFAX News : Victoria police have taken a big bite out of the local drug trade after searching a torrington place home last night. A 39 year old saanich man is in police custody after a month long joint investigation between victoria and central saanich police turned up one kilogram each of crystal meth and cocaine, as well as $15,000 in cash. Alexander Djafar-Zade was arrested last night, he was on bail for two other drug trafficking charges from this past december and february. Hamilton says police are requesting he be held in custody. Police say if sold on the street, the crystal meth is worth of $50-80,000 while the cocaine is worth between $60-80,000. Police call Djafar-Zade a mid to high level drug trafficker who lives with his mother in Gordon Head at 4370 Torrington Place . Djafar-Zade has been charged with two counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking and one count of breach. Good riddance to the garbage that make garbage on the street.

This sculpture project has a special feature: It also acts as a water fountain! Stay tuned for a construction update.

So, I have been experimenting with how to lay down the most optimal amount of foam. Because I am using a positive molding process (positive: material goes over a surface; negative: material goes into a mold), I have to contend with the material I lay down expanding in the wrong direction. The spray foam (e.g. Great Stuff) slowly and inexorably puffs in the direction of least resistence-- the air. When it sets it looks like a burn victim/bubble bath gone wrong. So, I started experimenting with corralling . The downside: it uses ALOT of duct tape. The upside: it does work. I have to take a one week break from this project. When I resume, I will try experimenting with tin foil (it's not just for hats anymore) plus some duct tape. If it goes very well, I may write a long piece of sculpting with Great Stuff foam and post it to " So Very Helpful ."

This from the Tribune : BOGOTA, Colombia: A nationwide blackout hit Colombia on Thursday, with authorities struggling to determine the cause of the electrical grid's collapse. President Alvaro Uribe told journalists in the southern city of Cali that authorities would "know in a few minutes" the cause of the blackout, which took place approximately at 10:15 a.m. local time (1515 GMT). He said the blackout "appears to have affected the entire country." Luis Alarcon, manager of state-controlled electricity distributor ISA, told Caracol Radio that the power outage appears to have begun with an undetermined technical glitch at a substation in Bogota and quickly spread to the rest of the country. He said work crews had re-established power to about 20 percent of the country and hoped to reconnect the capital Bogota and other cities in a few hours. So an entire nation drops back to pre-1850 levels in a heartbeat. No one in the North American/Northen media thin...

Happy Birthday to Martial Arts Master, Jet Li and darn funny guy, Kevin James . What else happened on April 26th? Take a read! These links go to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is great: if a topic sparse on information, they allow to go in and add new information. April 26 is the 116th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (117th in leap years ). There are 249 days remaining in the year. It is the first day following the spring equinox which cannot be Easter Sunday in Western Christianity. Events 1478 - The Pazzi attack Lorenzo de' Medici and kill his brother Giuliano during High Mass in the Duomo of Florence . 1564 - Shakespeare was christened (this is not his birthdate). 1607 - English colonists of the Jamestown settlement make landfall at Cape Henry , Virginia . 1802 - Napoleon Bonaparte signs a general amnesty to allow all but about one thousand of the most notorious émigrés of the French Revolution to return to France , as part of a reconciliary gesture with th...