Nanowrimo - In Progress!

Hello my bitches. I need to proof it still, it's in a rough form, but a story is delveloping nicely.

I am in the middle of Nanowrimo a.k.a. November Novel Writing Month.


It's an anyone can join type deal and you have 30 days to write 50,000 words...I am way behind, but I am determined to finish.


You can write literally anything you want. So I'm writing a sort of a mash-up of genres I like. It's all love, sex, drugs, robots, rock and other things that are generally awesome.






Here's an excerpt of the book. It's chapter two of Robot Work Force Inc.

Enjoy!

 -----------------------------------------------
Rena Beaton’s terrible apartment. ValueTown™ Sea-scrapers, Sub Unit 314 of block 10 -. Mechtropolis, Robotica.      8:12am, Monday August 7^th 2344.

–TWO-
___________________________________
She knew it right away. She knew that this particular Monday was out to kill her. The first sign was the loud music that must have been blaring for an hour that she had programmed to wake her up. The mind crushing headache was probably the next giveaway that this Monday had full intentions to kill her. So many things felt like they had gone very wrong last night. Rena’s sense of time had become non existent since she moved into the low-block. Her apartment was in a new experimental Valuetown™ complex. She lived in a sea-scraper. Sometimes she could see some bio-luminescent sea animals, but mostly just that deep dank darkness when the lights were off. The government subsidized the shit out of her place so, it was cheap at least and she could play her drums in here. Her front door was still open a crack, her clothes scattered in haste before sleeping. A half empty tallboy of Quanta Lite just out of arms reach, a water bottle way out of arms reach and the time of day being holographically being painfully projected directly into her eyes. “Ungggggghhh… someone kill me.” She felt a familiar the throbbing sensation which meant she hooked up with someone…she honestly couldn’t remember who or when… or even how she made it home. Her wall screen was left on, she was still wearing one of her heels and her apartment door was left wide open.


She knew she was late. She had to get her ass in gear. Rena popped an instant espresso, lit a cigarette under the industrial sized air vent(that is NOT its intended use Rena!) and hit the showers. She felt a pretty major wave of regret mid-shower. Her band opened for a real band for the first time. Rena vaguely remembered the first three songs from the show. The music was pretty great actually, but that’s also what got her in the mood to party like a rock star. Rena remembered ditching Yuki and Morgan pretty early on, right after her set was done…the rest after that. A total blur. While trying to scrub away the few memories of last night Rena’s shower lights dimmed and flashed red for split second. “Really? Already... whatever fine, play my message.” Rena washed her hair while her apartment played back the message. It was Yuki, and from last night, Yuki was drunk as hell, “Rennnnna you’re such a monster you bitch….okay…okay….okay buddy oh god. K…Ok. I maybe forgot to mention last night that yer supposed to be training a newbie tomorrow at nine AM…I know right. Twist ending….Yeah well you ditched me and Momo, so yeah. BYE BYE BYE!”



Rena was not impressed. She put on some clothes that had taken up landed immigrant status on her floor, but looked okay enough for basic societal standards, she still decided to throw on some kind of deodorant on…you know…for the good of the people. She kept on the forearm she had on last night, she usually puts on her work arm before bed anyways, and really didn’t have time to calibrate another one, besides this one was ready synced up and ready to go. She sprayed on a little cheap perfume and was out the door. The lighting in her hallway was almost as equally dank as her apartment. Ganbatte! Inc. Bots patrolled the hall ways of her building on tracks on each floor, doing maintenance, opening door for tenants and greeting them as they come and go. They’re great units, but fuck they must be like 80 year old units and they are so boring to look at. Just grey metal boxes with skinny arms and a boring face-form screen. One unit opened the door for Rena and told her it looked like she didn’t get much sleep. She wanted to know what kind of asshole would program a robot to talk to women like that. Rena didn’t know it at the time but later she would incur a misdemeanour for spray tagging that particular robot. She took the Valuetown™ Lift to the surface lobby (the slow leaky lift that scared the shit out of her) and was out into the streets, which were being illuminated by the horrible and indifferent sun.



She reached into her pocket to fish out her sunglasses and only found a pack of cigarettes. She sighed, lit another cigarette and looked at the time display on her prosthetic arm, her eye opened wide when she saw how goddamned late she was and ran her ass off to the Heisenberg Rapid Transit station. She also discovered that smoking and running at the same time is a really bad combination. She felt sick as she arrived and went to fish 6.75-RC from her pockets, only to realize any change she should have was spent at the bar last night. The train pulled into the station on it’s silent magnetic tracks and Rena make the decision to hop over the turnstile, she could make it if she ran. Rena was just about the make doors when a guy in a vest ran past her, bumping into her to the side and spilling the contents of her purse onto the tracks. He yelled back to her “I’m so sorry, spent to long chatting with my cabbie, can’t be late, SORRY!” Rena grit her teeth and as the train pulled away Rena shrieked “You’ll be fucking SORRY IF YOU EVER SEE ME AGAIN GODAMNIT, YOU FUCKING HEAR ME!!!!” She was sick, breathless and very angry as her tried to recollect the scattered contents of her purse. Two security drones quietly made their way over to her “I am really terribly sorry to bother you miss, but our records indicate you have failed to pay your fare, come with me to the booth and I can help you complete your payment.” Rena’s heart sank and she went on the defence. “Listen dude, don’t even start with me, if you had any idea what the hell I am…”


A loud interruptive beep came from the drone, cutting off Rena’s sorry excuse for an excuse. It politely said “You have 5 seconds to comply…5…4…3…2..” Rena tried to book it out of there, but both unit restrained her with ComfyConvict™ soft cables and dragged to her security. Rena did not have the ambition to kick and scream this time.

Movies.....again? YES!

Sorry about the lackluster number of updates. This will be change. I'm currently attempting a novel writing competencies and it's eating my time.  Well looks like we made yet another film.   This one is for the Toronto Film Challenge.  This group had disbanded for a couple of years, but it's changed management and it's back in black baby!

This time around we had to work with the following;
Prop: sparkly wand
Theme: bad luck
Location: doctor's office
Line: "put a cork in it"


We had six to eight minutes as a time line. Well sadly we were two min late and got disqualified.  It sucks but it happens and life goes on.  We are going take on the next challenge with a vengeance.

This one is totally fucked, just watch and don't try to think to hard about it. 

Two words; Urinal Shark.


myWand | Toronto Film Challenge | 48hr | Fall 2010 from Mark Driver on Vimeo.

Shade of Death - A creative meat joint. (I madez a mooovie)

Oh Snap! It's movie time again!

So the team I work with (Creative Meat) to make short films has created a new monster baby;

SHADES OF DEATH. This was done for the Philadelphia based  Project Twenty 1 film competition.  We are the only team from Canada involved.  They saw one of our previous films Faceopener: The Bloodening and they liked it enough to invite us to their competition!  The only criteria we had to adhere to was using the line OR theme "Between the lines"

We actually shot this badboy (bad girl?) on Digital SLRs, the 5DMkII and a 7D.  They shoot in high-def at 24 fps sooo it looks sexxxxxxy.   I was involved with the concept, the writing, did a little horrible acting and recorded audio. We walked away with the best visual effects award and we were nominated for the Best Editing and Best Sound Design awards.  Have a look!


Shades of Death | Project Twenty1 | 2010 from Mark Driver on Vimeo.

I thought you were the sweetest kill

(I didn't write this, I wish I had. It's off the the newest Broken Social Scene album. It's good stuff.)




I thought you were the sweetest kill
Did I even know?
And all the time we thought we did
Was it just for show?

If they try to pull you out
Would you even go?
I thought you were the sweetest kill
Did you even know?

I held your hand until the light
The scars were on the back
And all the time we were the right
Was it just retract?

And they can try to put you down, wear you out
Get you through the idea of the luck

I thought you were the sweetest kill
Did we even know?

All the time, we get by, trying to figure out our lives
Like a fade out
All the time, we get by, trying to figure our lives
Like a fade out

When we took the level ten
Was it just a twelve?
And when we went to where we've been
Was it just for self?

And they can try to wear you down, put you out
Get you through your will, that won't work

I thought you were the sweetest kill
Could I even know?

All the time, we get by, trying to figure out our lives
Like a fade out
All the time, we get by, trying to figure our lives
Like a fade out
All the time, we get by, trying to figure out our lives
Like a fade out
All the time, we get by, trying to figure our lives
Like a fade out

I break you through this world
I break you through this world
Let me break you through this world
Can I break you through this world?

Ray Kurzweil @ TED talks: Technology's accelerating power will transform us

(Spell check pending...I'm busy damn it!)

So recently I’ve been pretty obsessed with learning as much as I possibly can. No real specific topic, but I’ve always been inexplicably drawn to certain topics. Science (especially physics), technology, music, videogames, politics whatever…so anyways I often find myself fumbling around this wacky world wide web looking into all kinds of subject (always with a healthy degree of cynicism of course.) I’ve discovered a series of interesting video from an Annual conference known as the TED talks (Technology, entertainment, design) every year they have two annual conferences, one in Long Beach and on in Palm Springs. They basically gather tons of big movers and shakers from all kinds of facets of industry, science and politics…so naturally this shit is right up my alley.

The TED organization has a pretty simple but noble mission statement. I quote from their website “Our mission: Spreading ideas. We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.”
There is so many amazing and/or worrying things happening now in 2010. I firmly believe that this truly is the most exciting era to be alive. People sadly take the world for granted. Anyways I’m also on the bandwagon of spreading ideas. There are discussion that people should be having, but are not. So I am periodically going to be posting videos on topics that are important to me. Since I’ve already mentioned Mr. Ray Kurzweil a few posts ago, I’m going to post a video from a session he did for TED talks. This is once again regarding the exponential increase in computing power and the huge impact it’s going to have and how it will shape things to come. Have a look. Spread this stuff around if it’s interesting to you, people really need to start talking about things that matter. Like my dick yo…just checking to see if your still paying attention…to my junk. Here it is holmes. (Run time 23min 42 seconds)

A conversation about the Nature of Wikileaks. *Not for the faint of heart*

What the hell is Wikileaks? Really bro...you should know.


For the unfamiliar I shall directly quote  " WikiLeaks is a multi-jurisdictional public service designed to protect whistleblowers, journalists and activists who have sensitive materials to communicate to the public. Since July 2007, we have worked across the globe to obtain, publish and defend such materials, and, also, to fight in the legal and political spheres for the broader principles on which our work is based: the integrity of our common historical record and the rights of all peoples to create new history.
We believe that transparency in government activities leads to reduced corruption, better government and stronger democracies. All governments can benefit from increased scrutiny by the world community, as well as their own people. We believe this scrutiny requires information. Historically that information has been costly - in terms of human life and human rights. But with technological advances - the internet, and cryptography - the risks of conveying important information can be lowered.
In its landmark ruling on the Pentagon Papers, the US Supreme Court ruled that "only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government." We agree.
We believe that it is not only the people of one country that keep their government honest, but also the people of other countries who are watching that government. That is why the time has come for an anonymous global avenue for disseminating documents the public should see."

So there that is. I'm sure you can formulate your own opinion based on that alone.  But here is a brief video example of what they are offering to our world.  This is a video of an American helicopter on duty seeking justification to engage the enemy in Baghdad, Iraq. The American soldiers phone in that 5 to 6 of these individuals are armed but the footage does not add up in my view.  There is an obvious twist of the rules of engagement to justify the murder of this group of people.  I can understand that in this region there is an obvious Anti-American sentiment, but this is just fucking disgusting.  This is needless murder. 





So based on the existence of wikileaks I posed this question to Facebook...




"I'm curious about what people think about Wikileaks. (http://wikileaks.org/) As per wikipedia (no actual affiliation between the two) 'Wikileaks is an amorphous, international organization, based in Sweden,[1] that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive documents from governments and other organization...s, while preserving the anonymity of their sources.' Does it keep companies or governments in check or subvert our saftey for disclosure? What do you think??"






My buddy D stated this;
"Here's what I think. I agree that the public has a need to be informed in certain areas, and sometimes the red tape can be a bit too much. A site like wikileaks can be a good place to bring attention to important matters that shouldn't be a... cloud in people's minds. There is; however, a limit. It is the responsibility of wikileaks to guarantee the authenticity and the ability to sanitize intelligence such that it does not create a larger problem. That may sound hypocritical, but consider that national secrets can often have broader impacts than most can appreciate or even comprehend. Lives could be placed at risk, and international turmoil or panic could ensue."


Nick Gaston said "I think more disclosure is always a good thing, esp. in the 21st century when things can change as fast as the information flow.

I generally don't trust governments, always concerned with keeping their power and positions or corporations, a...lways looking out for their bottom line. I think it's obvious, esp. in the last 10 years or so, that there is too much even basic info that is swept under the rug in the name of national security and what information *is* released can be very misleading and manipulated. History has shown how information is manipulated at home and abroad to garner public support and the self proclaimed "intelligence agency of the people", WikiLeaks, has proven that this manipulation has gotten worse not better. I think it's a good thing that individuals within these towers of power can have an avenue and option to stand up for what they believe is wrong and let others know.

Don't take this next comment as a direct attack on the last part of your comment, D , but you bring up a good point I want to make. As far as turmoil and panic, I just can't make up my mind. On one hand, it smacks too much of the ever popular rational of: we need to suppress some of our activities for *your* own good. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth and insults my and a great many other people's intelligence. On the other hand even the best of us are not immune to faulty decision making, to put it nicely.

I think it's important to scrutinize every source that information comes from. Even WikiLeaks itself has a decidedly political mission and bias which should also be kept in mind, just as the bias of more mainstream sources should be scrutinized." 






Matt Tobin responded "I think all information should be free and those causing harm in the world to be held accountable. Telling everyone what is going on will bring about a majority consensus...since we're all in this world together, the majority of people who agree with things will cause less problems in the world...hopefully"



and then


Patrick Adler  had the following response. "Good q kev. I take a pragmatic approach to government leaks.
They should not be illegal and we can't really punish leakers for publishing information that they believe is moral.

At the same time, we should allow that some information, rela...ted to security and defense, be guarded. If there are governments making nuclear bombs than they should have every right to keep their methods secret.

So the defacto system, a kind of cat and mouse system between "leakers" and governments is acceptable. It allows for a soft check on abuses of power (like war crimes), it allows for activities that rely on secrecy, and actually it provides incentive for really sensitive information to be strictly kept"

I hope what people take away from this is the nature of the discussion. Things are changing so fast. SO FAST.  We're entering this really trans formative period of information proliferation and things changing very quickly.

Please people, TALK ABOUT THIS... this is the very world we live in...things are a changing!!



 I will edit this tomorrow...cus I'm sleepy.



Edit: Here is the longer version of the video for those who are interested. Name changed upon request.

P.W. Singer: Military robots and the future of war (TED talks session)

I posted last night something I wrote a few months ago regarding Robots and warfare. I stumbled upon this video that totally expresses my points much more eloquently.

Mr. Singer is a Sr. Fellow and Director of the 21st Century Defence Initiative run out of the Brookings Institution. CNN has named this guy to their "New Guard" List of the Next Generation of Newsmakers.

Our friends at the Financial Times have previously noted him as "Guru of the Week" for the thinker who most influenced the world that week and by Slate Magazine for "Quote of the Day."

Mr. Singer has also served as coordinator of the Obama-08 campaign’s defence policy task force. In '09, Singer was named by Foreign Policy Magazine in the Top 100 Global Thinkers List, of the people whose ideas most influenced the world that year.

SO, anyway…most of that info came directly from his website, but I've read up on him, this guy has some serious clout. I think this is worth watching. These are issues people need to start to discuss. Its 2010 people, the cold war is over and technology is changing us in almost unimaginable ways. New ideas and frank discussions are sorely needed to grapple with the new intellectual and philosophical challenges that we face, and will be facing increasingly in the future.

Visions Of The Future: The Quantum Revolution

The last part of this documentary. Oh shit, this is the shit that I love. A dive into the weird and wonderful quantum world. We are now just beginning to realize that our human consciousness is having a direct impact on reality. Just simply being an observer changes the world around you. We have also been exploiting our new tricks to create properties not found in nature through meta-materials, quantum computing and new states of matter...love it!

Visions of the Future: The Biotech Revolution

Part 2 of this BBC doc. This is a look at how just in recent years, man has finally really started to see the big picture of genetics and how our bodies function. Huge strides towards almost unimaginable medical treatments are becoming a reality.

Visions of the Future: The Intellgence Revolution

Here's a sweet documentary about some of the things we are heading towards. This section discusses our mastery over computing and coming to terms with our abilities to mimic reality. From virtual worlds to Robotics...here it is.

Robotic Warfare: A Fucking Conundrum.

Modernity has presented humanity with a plethora of innovations that have provided fruitful economic drivers along side increasingly more frequent paradigm shifts in the human knowledge-base.  It's been observed frequently that when the military complex adopts a new technology, it’s a matter of time before these innovation trickle down to the masses.  We’ve seen this with microwave technology and computer networking just to cite relatable examples. In this year of 2010  we are now well on the way into the new robotic age. Companies like iRobot and their ever popular Roomba, being a shining example.

Prior to this era, robotics were implemented to replace the menial grunt work of the common assembly worker. These machines were designed to perform a single function repeatedly.  This new age that we have entered into, for good or for ill has seen the sophistication and finessing of robotics within the all facets of their utility.  In an effort to gain a strategic advantage in the current theatres of war, unmanned drones are becoming an increasingly attractive option, particular within the American forces.It keeps boots off the ground and enables a free and remote range of motion.Currently America employs approximately 5000 robots in Afghanistan, 1200 of which are unmanned air vehicles or UAVs like the predator drone.

This new brand of warfare presents huge moral grey area and list of very serious problems.   First lets explore the conundrum of the “Cubicle Warrior”.  The American predator drone is a remotely controlled unmanned air vehicle. It’s capable of prolonged surveillance and also equipped with two hellfire missiles.  This machine is operated remotely by a specially trained solder in a safe faraway location.  The problem presented with this model of combat is the total depersonalization of combatants. The UAV operator need not fear injury or death, while being fully capable of imparting those very things.  When damage is inflicted the operator does witness the carnage with their own eyes, but through a digital representation.  The operator also may pass off control of their UAV unit to another operator, then go get a coffee and take a cigarette break. The operator can end their shift, drive back their homes and spend an evening in the comfort of their family and their home.  The combatants on the other side of the coin are faced with an enemy that does not sleep, feel pain or know fear.  This very fact in its self could act as a rallying call to escalate their cause, to rally against what they would perceive as their technologically endowed but cowardly enemy.    

Another major issue with this problem is the fact that eventually once the technology has become less expensive and available, private interests and individual persons could use this technology for their own aims abroad or within their own state.   When a machine is used to commit a warcrime,  who does the hammer of justice fall down upon?  The machine without will of its own or an unknown operator who is secluded in another country outside of  the jurisdiction of their accuser? Does the operator suffer the consequence, or their superior sitting in an office issuing orders?  What happens when  the technology  becomes sophisticated enough to achieve autonomy and acts seemingly on its own accord? These questions currently do not have answers, and this scenario is not 10 years away, this is happening now in 2010. 

We have international laws to dictate rules of engagement, but these rules currently do not have any way to define these problems.  These laws, such as the Geneva convention are still reflecting a cold war age, before Moore's law acceleration has surpassed our common sense.

Video Game Haikus

Haikus are weird man.  Try to guess which game each Haiku is from. (It's pretty fucking easy)


1.
Goomba Approaches
Dude moves only in straight lines.
Bitch is gonna get stomped.

2. 
Level 9, Hight 5
Only for the strong hearted
Z blocks are the worst

3.
Mad Ape pearched attop.
Throwing barrels like a champ
The kong must fall

4. 
Eight bosses to kill
Weak white pellets fire away
Go Blue Bomber go!

5.
Mini-games are dumb
red and blue dots cover the board
I will steal your stars.

Back in black

I've been all working my butt off and on magical journeys. I will be updating this for reals again and maybe even elaborate.

I know. I'm a monster.

Toronto is Grafitti town (the good kind)

I'm not going to pretend to have any real insight into Toronto's grafitti culture, but I sure as hell can enjoy what I see.There some pretty incredible stuff in this city, Queen St west, the High Park area (along the TTC tracks) and the Adult Learning Centre at Castle Frank is covered in some great stuff! Even during the last Nuite Blanche festival the art show really encouraged our local grafitti artists.  Personally I think grafitti can really make a city beauitiful as long it's not just some trashy gang tags.

This is my current fav. I keep seeing these cute little birds everywhere and they cheer me up on the weary shuffle to the office every day!

If you have any grafitti you love and want me to post it, send a message to me at 

http://www.facebook.com/kev.bot.awesome and I'll arrange something!

WOOT!

Talkin' bout da future -or- Technological Singluarity for Dummies

For whatever reason over the last couple months I find myself obsessed the future.  Both short term and long term and not necessarily my own future.  I catch my thoughts drifting off thinking about the physical and biological limits of human beings and our seemingly uncanny ability to shatter those limits.


Here are of few of those limits
No claws? Psssft whatevs I'll make spear and it's going to be awesome.
No Wings?  No worries, ma homeboys O-Dub and Wil-Slice Wright gots some flying contraption up in there.
That moon thing? Been there, I'm pretty over it.
Communicating to everyone anytime? Yeah I twitter on the iphone when I poop.

Besides the limitations of our biology the human brain is this amazing product of nature, which seems to be driven towards constant self-improvement.  Every year new incredible world records are broken and we seem to push the bar further. Every year the quarks and stars make more sense to us.  What allot of people don't understand is that these things aren’t just happening gradually overtime, but in some cases, these changes that are happening exponentially. Quicker and more frequent.

Soooo blah blah fucking blah, I've been reading up on stuff like this allot recently. Anyway I've stumbled upon the work of Ray Kurzweil. (Which makes perfect sense.) This dude is an inventor and a futurist who is very much involved in the study of progress.  You maybe remember him from such inventions as "text to speech" and "speech recognition". He's also Google and Microsoft's goto guy for opinions on whether or not their products are good for mankind.  Anyways his work is making allot of waves and one of his most interesting concepts is something which could affect my generation within our lifetime.  Technological Singularity.

"So what the fuck is techmo-gumbeldy goo or what ever the fuck u just said?"

Technological Singularity is more or less the sum total of progress as we know it.  We need to start with the some of the first inventions/discoveries like fire, simple stone tools,  cooking and farming.  These innovations were hundreds to thousands of years apart from each other.  With each successful innovation, the next innovation is discovered much closer than the previous.  These changes in thought are called paradigm shifts, this is shit like finding out we orbit the sun, that the earth is round and matter is made of quarks and atoms.
We are coming to a point in our near future where technology will advance to a point where these changes in common sense will happen on a daily basis and beyond. 

WTF?? Yeah that’s allot to process. It seems pretty far fetched, but there are some pretty simple trends and numbers behind it.  Moore's Law is a good jump off point.  Gordon Moore is one of the father of Intel circa 1968 and surmised that every two years the amount of transistors on an integrated circuit would double.

Hence a doubling in computer power every 2 years. So bro has kicked ass and it's been true so far.  Computers get exponentially more powerful. Current computers will max out their capacity by 2020, but with developments of quantum computers and DNA computers, there really is no true limit. Even now I can jump on my blackberry, send a pic of my drunk self at bar to my cousin in Texas within seconds.  During the 2010 Gold medal hockey game Canadians were all connected by web, phone and television within .5 seconds of each goal or drunk text. 

This is just the beginning as we speak; energy companies trying to harness fusion, nano- machines which we will combine to our biology are being produced, new kinds of computers are being designed and low-earth orbit solar energy plants are being discussed. I'm really going to cut this all here as I could ramble on about this shit much longer, but take it or leave it, the future is going render our world so connected and different.  It's going to be a Brave New World please make sure you are wearing pants when it arrives.

Adverb pre-fixed video game reviews.

You'll see what I mean,
*I am fully aware that some of these may not be actual words*

Left 4 Dead 2

Zombiely Vindicated, brains asplode with friends online!
- 4 out of 7 Goddamns


Assassins Creed
Stabily delicious but gets boring quick.
- Π out of 7 Goddamns

New Super Mario Brothers Wii
Frustratingly Awesome, turn parties into screamin
- 5out of 7 Goddamns

Bayonetta
Sexily carpal tunnel inducing, main story not meant for human comprehension.
- 6 out of 7 Goddams.

Raisins are stupid.

The purported food item know simply as "The Raisin" is both evil and stupid, making foods that could have been delicious terrible since antiquity.

There are many many reason why I have concluded raisins to be craptacular.

Here’s why!

10. They’re all shrivelled and wrinkled like.
9. They used to be once delicious grapes and some jerk left them sitting out in the sun by accident and decided "Yeah I guess it's still food."
8. They clearly were not awesome enough grapes to be turned into wine.
7. The texture is nasty
6. They do not have brains and are therefore stupid.
5. They crap-up whatever food they are hiding in.
4. THEY HIDE and wait for you to bite them and ruin your food you previously thought to be delicious.
3. They are the devil's candy. Satan, Bill O’ Reilly and Professor Doom all teamed up in the 1800’s with a plan to kill humanity. This plan was know as “PROJECT DOOM RAISIN”
2. "Raisins range from about 67% to 72% sugars by weight(1)", which means they are trying to kill me with their freaking fructose.
1. They watch you sleep, they watch and they wait...



(1.) Albert Julius Winkler. General viticulture, University of California Press, 1962, p. 645. ISBN 9780520025912

The black pools at the back of your mind

I could stare there for a million years,

I'd never really comprehend the neurons there.

You could love, laugh, snicker, giggle and fade, but at the back your face I see these pools of black.
You smile and cry, you laugh and suffer. Regardless of where you find yourself I find myself in the deep end your black pools.

I struggle how to understand how you even comprehend me let alone yourself. Yet we always find ourselves still swimming in the same end.

You swim in the same end, we’ll play pretty and play house, we’ll play nice and play mad. We’ll play cute and sad.

All the colours of the world paint our canvas, but our brush stops short at the back of your mind. There is no colour to describe where we met half-way or where we met our maker. These words are stupid and pretty and maybe don’t compute.

Maybe we could smoke some cigarettes and listen to the Smiths in your car or just stare at each other for awhile.

We'll never get each other completely but for god sakes you drive me crazy. I'll over analyze everything to death, but I want you to analyze me to death, let’s make out and sleep in tomorrow.  

Just tomorrow promise me I can look into the black pools and hope to see something that makes sense to us both.


We’ll get up late and pay too much for breakfast, but it will be great.

I'm at work, listening to some MSTRKRFT

These beats + too much caffine + pent up energy from sitting in an office = I NEEDZ TO GET MA DANCE ON.  Alas Friday is one day too far away and I'm leaving Toronto this weekend to see my friends in Guelph. Dancing in Guelph is pretty slim pickings.  I hate clubs but Toronto has tons of alternative clubs or weird venues that happen to have awesome DJs spinnin' what I likes.


FRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDAY....get yer butt over here.

I'll be okay *commence chair dancing...it's all in the shoulders*

Videogame Logic I wish applied to reality.

Videogames are frakin' awesome, once you brush aside all the crap in the realm of videogames there is so much gold to be found (300gp?) There are certain rules and logic that apply in videogames that would be killer if they applied to modern society.

Here are my 10 Rules and Logic of videogames that should apply to my life.

10) My clothes should give me attributes. (Hoodie + 2 charisma, Chuck Taylors + 3 to speed, parachute pants - 100 to life)

9) I want a damn inventory! Cuz shit son, my pockets ain't gunna cut it when I gets me an enchanted battle axe.

8)Mashing buttons fast makes you a rockstar. If life were like that I'd be god damned Chopin just by typing. Seriously I would only need 3 buttons to execute an epic panty-melting solo.

7) Experience points. Damn I wish I could rack-up magic power enabling skills by going through my own daily hum-drum. Example: Replenishing the coffee in my office +300XP! LEVEL UP! YOU'VE LEARNED *CAFFEINE JOLT*

6) Extra lives - If I had additional lives, I would do so many stupid(er) things. Like battling evil streetcars or jumping lava pits more often.

5) Saving - Remember that time my pants fell down and I threw up when I asked my girlfriend out for the 1st time? NO? THAT'S RIGHT cuz I hit the reset and started that shit from the last checkpoint.

4) Awesome items and presents for solving simple tasks - Yes, I would enjoy wielding the uber crossbow of the spacegods just for solving this morning's sudoku or pressing some buttons in the right order to receive some kind of enchanted boomerang.

3) A pet goomba - Damnit genetic scientists and mycologists of the world, get your shit together so I can buy me a goomba. I assume you just need some mushrooms and some nucleotides or some shit. Oh goomba, you are the pug of monsters.

2) Jump on things to win! - For reals B, if I could jump on anything standing in my way how sweet would that be? Need a promotion? Jump on your boss. About to get mugged? Jump on that poorly educated street thug. Late for the Subway? Jump on the all the commuters in row for COMBO POINTS!

1) Power-ups - Items, serums, elixers you know all that good stuff. If I could suddenly boost my speed and intelligence by drinking aspartame laden pop, that would be the biz-bomb. I suppose mind altering substances are the closest were going to get. Ummmm Happy 4:20?

*Player 1 has left the game*

Short Story: Written Dec 27th, 2006

This is a short story I wrote one night. It's up on my facebook and I like it hence here it is.


I won't get the chance to defend my case

Can't be sure how long its been like this,I've been waiting for Karma to rear it's head, its monstrous ugly fucking head.

I've been holed up here for so long, only cuz one more slip and I'm a dead man. Too many arrogant moves, too many close calls. I've been asking for it.

A pull of bourbon burns down my throat and into my mind to distract me, with the glow of my monitor to keep me company. The stolen wi-fi provides me my only window out of this hole.

I can hear in my subconscious, the smug terminal words "You fucked up" leaking from the lips of my own personification of the overwatch. I know the rumor and stories. There will be one single knock at my door. No noise and no struggle, no faces to blame.

I won't get the chance to defend my case.

I take another pull on the bottle of bourbon...yeah I guess I did fuck up. But I got so damn tired of keeping quiet and letting overwatch take away everything.

My wits are keen, I've got a belly full of shit cheap liquor and a fully loaded friend holstered to my side.

I hear the train run past outside of my building. Raindrops assault my windowless walls. I feel tense.

KNOCK...

Black holes are going to eat your face.

I love black holes. They are these giant overwhelming freakish anomalies of our awesome and mysterious universe. Once something has passed a black hole's event horizon not even light can escape from the pull of the gravity. Everything at the centre of a black hole gets torn apart by the singularity. An area of zero volume with infinite gravity. It's actually been discovered that there is a super-massive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, causing of the solar systems to orbit it. This is not a bad thing, it's not going to harm us, it's actually just keeping everything locked in place. They have reason to believe massive black holes are at the centre of all major galaxies.

What would it be like to get caught in one????



That being said here are the top 5 things I would throw in a black hole.

5) All of the world's stupid raisins. Raisins are teh dumbz.

4) Skinny Jeans

3) White Castle...the entire fucking franchise.

2) Whatever evil device that allows Canadian PM Stephan Harper to keep his human form in our dimension.

1) Will Smith's Big Willie Style.

That is all.

Shameless Self Promotion 2.0

This will be the end of my journey into embedding-town. Population: Awesome.

Film Number 3 - The Ballad of Bobby the Bib



Summer 2007 48hr Film Challenge

We were 10 min late getting this in, so this one didn't qualify. This one is weird, but you can tell everything looks tighter.

Prop: Baby Bib
Central Conflict: Drunk at a funeral
Location: Parking lot.
Character Trait: Mean
Spoken Line: "That's the law"
Time Limit: 6 min

Film Number 4 - Last Round

This is where shit starts getting punch-tacular. We start exploding heads. This placed 3rd in the Spring 2008 24hr film challenge. This is the first time we used the team name "Creative Meat" we decided to stick with it after this.



Prop: Black box, elastic band, paperclip, bobby-pin, green string
Central Conflict: Drunk at a funeral
Genre: Action
Conflict: Divide and conquer
Spoken Line: "corrosive"
Time Limit: 5 min 30 sec

Film Number 5 - Bride to be... Delivered!

Summer 2008 48hr Film Challenge

1st Place baby!
We took the following awards:
Best Picture
Best Director
Best Editing
Best Cinematography

It's about a mail order bride. YEEEEESSSSSSSS! We've got some green screen and other kinds of magic.



Prop: Bingo Dabber
Central Conflict: Left at altar on wedding day.
Location: Bedroom
Character Trait: Ambitious
Spoken Line: "Musical"
Time Limit: 10 min

Film Number 5 - Faceopener: The Bloodening

We didn't place this time, but man we got to use stupid amounts of fake blood and at the end of the day that's really what its all about. Everything looks super tight now.



Genre: Horror
Theme: Suspicious
Prop: Jar of Horror
Line: "Welcome Back"
Time Limit: 5min 30sec


Film Number 6 - Baby Battle: Modern Dad vs. Perfect Mom

This brings us up to speed. At this point the Toronto Film Challenge group has disbanded and a new international group has entered the arena. The 48 Hour Film Project. So this was our film. They pick the genre at random for you...and they gave us. Family Film...oh fuck.


the following;

Genre: Family Film
Character: Stuart / Sabrina Oliver - Architect
Prop: Wrapped Gift
Line: "I expect you to be prompt"

The judges liked what they saw.

Awards
Best Use of Phrase
Best Sound Design
Best Cinematography
Best Editing
Best Film of Toronto

The members of Creative Meat are not normal humans. They stalk the countrysides at night scouring the land for discarded game boys and ipods.

Now in April Creative Meat is off to Vegas to compete against the other winners from cities all over the globe. Will my addition to blackjack overwhelm me or will I return with golden pants? STAY TUNED.

Shameless Self Promotion and practicing embedding sexy things.

Lots of posts today. I'm trying to become familiar with blogger's software. I likes very much so far.

So besides being a cubicle monkey in a vast sea of cubicle farms in my spare time I make short-films in 24 and 48 hour competitions here in Toronto a few times a year. This is more or less a summary of the films I've done. They're all pretty damn silly but I enjoy them.

So as a quick background. These challenges started with an organization called Toronto Film challenge. The idea is to get teams of filmmakers from a variety of background working on a tight deadline to make a film with a predetermined criteria such as; genre, theme, character trait, a prop and a line of spoken dialogue. Since starting these, my team has placed 1st in two of the challenges. Typically I do all the writing and a large portion of the conceptual work. Sometimes I direct, act or record sound. My team members often change, but there is a core group that's always consistent.

Lets have a look!

Film Number 1 - Legends of Music:The Burning Spurs



This is the first film and it's is goddamned silly. Made for the summer 2005 48hour competition.
It followed this criteria;
Prop: Mini umbrella picks
Soundbite: Cuckoo Clock
Location: Train Station
Character Trait: Creative
Colour: Sepia
Time Limit: 12min

We ended up making the top 10. There is huge difference the quality of our films. I'll post the next one and I'll be adding more tomorrow.

Film Number 2 - Subject 11




This is the second film we've done. Still the quality isn't up to our usual par yet. This was the fall 2006 24 hour challenge. Every team did a horror film for this challenge.

It followed this criteria;
Prop: Bottle of TFC poison, rubber gloves.
Theme: Horror
Genre: Any branch of horror (we chose zombie)
Spoken Line: "Legend"
Time Limit: 6 min


We get better as the years progress and coming up in April our winning film will be competing internationally. Anyways I'll be posting more of them you can see for yourself.

HUZZAH!

I suppose I should make a statement

We'll I've already posted something, but for anyone who stumbles upon this blog here is my disclosure as to the purpose of this blog. To be honest I don't know yet what it will become. For now this is a place where I can write down thoughts and ideas as they come to me.

I'm a big geek for science, news, technology, music and videogames. I also like to write short stories or streams of thought. So wait and see, this will evolve over time and we'll see where it goes.

-Kevin

I can't stop playing Bioshock

The heavy ominous footsteps of the Big Daddy haunt my dreams as I desire to possess the genetic gold of their wards. I've been in this aquatic mausoleum for days and everyday I feel I'm drawing closer to close freedom or closer to madness. Three days since the plane went down, three days since I've elected to begin the shedding of my humanity for the thrill of the splice. Give me a few more days here and I'm sure even God would bow down to me. What good was my body before? It was weak, fleshy and vulnerable. Now I command electricity and set any foe ablaze with the snap of my finger.

Just give me a few more days; I just need some more Adam. You will see what I can become, whether you choose to join me or fear me, I have not yet made up my mind.