About a decade ago I staretd playing Counter Strike while in University.  I started playing in the "Cove" or whatever the UW arcade was called at that time.  I played CS, or at least started to, because I wanted to know what the buzz was all about.  The first experience was interesting.

I was able to get into the game very quickly but also developed motion sickness almost immediately.  Fighting through the sickness I managed to win a few rounds and was intrigued.  I went on to purchase an upgraded machine on which I could play CS and spent many nights becoming a proficient player.  Unfortunately I never made the jump to pro as I didn't have the time to do so but was asked by several companies.  I don't think it was my skill that made me an attractive add but my teamwork skills and my ability to manage a team while I was also playing.

CS isn't simply about taking out your opponents but about working as a unit in order to protect each other as well as overpower your enemy.  If you see a unit isn't throwing as many numbers at you as you should be seeing then it's likely they're flanking you and you need to counter it.  The ability to see the full picture and react meant that I survived just long enough and took out just enough people to tilt the battle in favour of the better players on my team.

Of course, those mad skillz were put to use when one of the greatest challenges of my life came along:

It's Bieber?  I thought it was Beaver...

4chan is going to go nuts over this.

Regular visitors will notice the lack of a Movie or Media List.  That may return someday.  Things have changed substantially over the last few years and I'll write an update post on that front soon.

You'll also notice that the blog history now goes back to Sunday November 26th 2000 or my very first blog post...ever.  You'll also notice that I haven't matured much since then or through the years.  Talking about exceeding your goals!

For the third or fourth time in ten years a new platform is running this site.

While I toyed with using WordPress for a while I decided to spin my own (once again) as I have built a new web platform.

Let's see where I go with this new system as it's getting more user friendly by the day.

I know I haven't posted in a year or so but this bit of information seemed important enough to share.

I was helping a family friend fix their 160GB iPod and Google searches proved fruitless so I thought I'd share the issue as well as how it was fixed.

Setup:
160GB iPod
iMac

Issue:
iPod appears in Finder (equivalent of Windows Explorer) but does not appear in iTunes.

Things tried that didn't work:
Hard reset.
Disk mode.
Diagnostic mode.
Ejecting the iPod drive that appears in Finder causes iPod to disconnect and then instantly reset, almost as if it ran into a fatal error.

Eventual solution:
In Disk Utility I erased the drive partition and then ejected the iPod drive. The iPod then appeared in iTunes and worked normally including an update.

Possible issue:
The iPod drive appeared to be formatted to FAT and was using up the entire space available on the iPod. Ejecting the disc appeared to cause a problem as there was no space left for the iPod to actually store any media. Also to note, there was no content on the FAT partition; just empty space.

I've not traveled much by any stretch of the imagination. I have friends (like Mike Connolly) that have traveled around the world and experienced many cultures. My trips have been limited to the US, India, and parts of Europe. Yet it seems that I have more travel experience that most people. Why is it that people fail to travel anywhere except to pre-packaged resort all inclusive packages? Whatever happened to going on a road trip with only a compass and the only guides being the sun and the occasional advice from a stranger? Perhaps people are too busy to know better or want to package as much as possible into as little time as possible.

I try to take a distinctly opposing view by seeing things again and again. I like visiting some of the same places many times over and expanding the circle each time. That's not to say that I don't go to a new place but it's impossible to see a whole town in one day. A town or city isn't just historical sites; it's the sidewalks, it's the people or lack thereof in a park on any given day. Perhaps I take traveling too seriously.

Over the last few years my travel luggage has expanded from a single bag to four bags and now down to two. Experience teaches one that equipment can always be minimized. There are some things that just won't be needed. In case of an emergency there's very few things you worry about. For instance, last year when I went to Italy I crammed two camera bags full of equipment and necessities. This year I'm taking less than one camera bag and it has space for non-camera related items. It's partially the experience of knowing what to shoot with and also deciding that I don't really need 500 GB of RAID 1 backup on the go.

Do other people learn? Or perhaps other people are looking to see and not experience.

When UK Prime Minister Brown visited US President Obama he received 25 US DVDs. Of course what nobody at the time thought of were two things: region coding and signal format. Well, it turns out that Brown definitely ran into the region coding problem.

Most commercial DVDs released by movie studios are region coded so that DVDs bought in a certain part of the world only play in DVD players bought in that part of the world. It's a simple way to ensure that if a movie is released on DVD in North America but is still in theaters overseas then those overseas folks can't just import the DVD and watch it. It's also used to ensure that if a DVD is available for less in another market then a customer from a higher priced region can't import and watch it.

In the context of this post there are only two regions to deal with: Region 1 (Canada and US, basically countries north of Mexico) and Region 2 (Europe (except for Poland, Ukraine, and Russia), The Middle East (Iran and West including Egypt), South Africa, and Japan. Basically this means that DVDs purchased by Obama for Brown are not playable on regular UK DVD players. In order for Brown to play them he has to use a region free DVD player which he may not legally able to do. He could try and import a region free DVD player from China, or he could purchase a Region 1 DVD player, or he could simply purchase the Region 2 versions of the DVDs (yuck...more on this below).

Let's consider each of the options. Importing a player from China is not an option as it would circumvent the "DRM" (term used loosely) on the DVD. If he imported a Region 1 player then he'd run into problem #2 which is signal format. North America uses 60 Hz (NTSC) whereas the UK uses 50 Hz (PAL) which means he'd try to playback a disc and his TV would probably say "No Signal". If Brown still has his remote at this time (and it's not lying outside on Downing Street) then he would probably be resigned to buying the Region 2 versions of the DVDs. The movie studios, player manufacturers, and lawyers would all do a happy jig. Coincidentally all of the three mentioned jiggers are the ones that own/run the consortium that license all this technology.

So what about that first option? The Region free player? Surely you'd still have the NTSC/PAL issue. Most likely not as most region free players also transcode from NTSC to PAL and vice versa. Interesting isn't it? That you can use a simple box that probably costs the same as your normal DVD player to watch a movie that you can legally buy but probably can't watch. By the way, you can also use a PC to do the transcoding but you probably run into legal issues again.

So there it is, in a nutshell, the problems that Brown faced and will probably continue to face.

The opening credits to "Watchmen" is one of the best credits I've seen to date.  It's unlike most other films in that it educates you to the events leading up to the movie.  Most credit sequences are simply that...credit sequences and it's rare to find sequences where you can't pay attention to the titles because there's simply something far too interesting going on.

Jon also pointed out another great opening credit sequence from "The Kingdom"

Have returned from Snowplate 2009 up in Sudbury. It's an amazing tournament that I suggest all attend next year. Photos coming soon.

Finally after a year or so I bring you an update.

I am working on a little project to update the platform that this blog/blag runs off of. I also expect to spawn several blogs targeting each specific area of my life: code, Ultimate, photography, and life in general. They will all merge back here on this site as I am working on a new form of blog sharing concept. I have to solidify the design for that before I publish it.

Here are all the photos I've posted on Flickr:

Days 2 and 3 - On the Beach

Day 4 - San Marino

Freestyle Practice

Paganello - Sunday Night Party

Paganello - Ultimate!

Paganello - Welcome Party

Or, the full collection: Italy 2008 Collection

Normally I wouldn't post a trailer that's as slow as this one but...the disco music at the end goes way back to my childhood and I'm hooked on that alone...darn movie companies know exactly how to get my money.