Merry Christmas World.

Small miracles do happen.

andre

Well as some of you may or may not know - I have moved to Toronto. I am now a Torontonian.

It was a long and hard process to get here. The easy part was unloading my old house. It was sold in like 2 days. The hard part started with searching for a house in Toronto.

If you haven't had the pleasure of shopping for a home in Toronto you have no idea about the pain. Search search search. Shitbox after shitbox. "They want how much for that?"

Then you see something you like. "Ooooo, that's nice, and the price is good.... 'offers accepted on' monday - start the bidding war." And you lose it.

Finally we found something and almost lost it, but here we are.

Then comes the closing stress. Then packing - planning - moving - stress. Then closing the other house stress. Stress stress stress.

Then move day. 16 hours of packing + 14 hours of moving ... that adds up to more than 24 hours. Don't plan on sleeping.

But now I'm settled in - sort of. Unpacking! Painting. Arranging.

Google maps has long had satellite images of just about anywhere I wanted to see in detail. That is except for Etobicoke. Well, that is up until now.

Poor old Etobicoke used to be a fuzzy green glob on the map. But now its in high def like the rest of the world.

Way to go Etobicoke.

andre

I'm coining a new phrase - derek envy

Defined as the feeling one gets after reading derek martin's blog entries.

Despite negative conotations of the word 'envy', derek envy is actually a good thing. A genuine appreciation of the cool stuff this guy is up to. Yeah, you wish you were doing all the things he was doing yourself, but you almost get as much of a high living vicariously.

Derek is becoming Forest Gump - just a lot brighter - and actually living with purpose as opposed to falling bass ackwards into exciting life experience.

Hats off to Derek.

andre

I've mentioned before that I'm not particularly appologetic about my smoking. I've talked about how I actually like to smoke (whether or not that's the addiction talking).

A while back I knew that my wisdom teeth were coming out and I also knew that you aren't supposed to smoke for at least 24 hours after the surgery lest you risk dry socket. I had also heard that you shouldnt smoke for a few days afterwards to reduce the risk of infection. So I thought if I'm not going to smoke for a couple of days - maybe I should just stop smoking altogether. Goodness knows there are benefis to quitting.

If there is ever a 'good' time to quit smoking I think it must be when you have your wisdom teeth pulled out. Your mouth is a mess. You feel like crap. You don't even want a cigarette. I know I didn't even think about having one for the first 24 hours. The next 24 hours the thought entered my mind, but I still wasn't feeling well. Then in the last 24 hours I actually had a temperature of 102 - which doesn't make you want much of anything - let alone a cigarette.

So I went under the knife on Friday and got my wisdom teeth yanked out of my head.

Why the link on the words wisdom teeth? - just so you can see the picture near the top of the wikipedia article. That picture more or less looks like the situation I had going on for my lower teeth.

Did it hurt? Well the procedure itself didn't hurt at all... and I was awake for the whole thing. But let me tell you there is nothing like the pain I felt 3 hours later when the freezing wore off. Owwwowwwowwwoowwooww. Throbbing badness.

But - its gotten better over the course of the last 2 days - even though i haven't been getting much sleep and the headaches are annoying as the meds ware off every few hours.

Chipmunk cheeked and doped up. I'll be happy when its over.

andre

Its been about 1 year since I launched andremolnar 2.0. Obviously with this sort of site I wanted to have comments enabled and not force people to register or pass some human validation test (captcha) just so they can have their say (not that anybody actually bothers to comment on here). But, you don't also want to be swamped with comment spam.

At the time there weren't any comment spam-bots that posted to drupal based sites, but there were still comment spam sweat shops doing the work manually. So, as a precaution I installed the spam module. Every once and a while I would get notified of some spammer trying to clog my site, but no action was needed. Spam messages were quarantined.

Well, in the past few weeks it turns out that the spam bots have finally been programmed to tackle drupals comment forms. This is good news and bad news. The good news is that Drupal has enough traction in the world that someone has taken the time to write a bot to post comments to Drupal sites. The bad news of course is that someone has taken the time to write a bot to post comments to Drupal sites.

A friend of a friend works for the research department of a major US news network.

Last week when the tornados devistated a number of communities completely destroying a number of homes, someone called down to the research department and asked this friend if he could find the phone numbers of some of the vitims.

He responded, "well sure, but you realize that none of these people have a home, let alone a phone to be reached at."

While this story sounds like an urban legend, I can assure you its absolutely true. People in news are often so blinded by the search for a sensational story; so quick to exploit the recently devistated that they fail to apply the most basic common sense thinking.

andre

The other day I was having a conversation about existentialism, ethics and morality.

During the conversation we explored the question of whether stomping on a puppy's head was wrong.

From an atheist existentialist perspective, if one is acting in a way that is 100% authentic, then the answer is no. Stopping on the puppy's head is perfectly okay. (Mind you, from a utilitarian perspective the act would likely cause more of a hastle to everyone involved and virtually no utility - the answer is yes, stomping the puppy's head is wrong no matter how authentic the act is).

At any rate, the following night I had a dream that cracked me up. I must have laughed out loud in the middle of the night.

I was at a party and I spot the person I was having this conversation with across the room. I call him over and after chatting with him for a while he anounces that he is going to leave.

As he's walking towards the door with a drink in his hand I pipe up, "you can't go outside with that."

I have no idea why I am posting anything at all. I guess I just want to post something new, but I don't feel like sharing anything. But, that in itself is sharing something. So there you have it.

andre

A while back... like in August of 2004 - I wondered what one million dots might look like. So I made a picture just to see.

Well, since then a number of enterprising individuals have come up with a money maker. Selling advertising one pixel at a time on a million pixel grid.

A google search for Million Pixel Ads returns a long list of sites selling pixels for anywhere between $0.05 to $1,000 per pixel. There is even a site that tracks the "pixel wars".

One person started 'the war' by being the first to make $1,000,000 selling pixels. Then came the copycats.

One article I read about this phenomenon noted that its one of those ideas so simple one must ask "why didn't I think of that?"

Apparently I wasn't the only person to notice that its been a bit grey this year. Make that this year and the last ten days of 2005. With the exception of yesterday, there has been no sunshine in my home town since before December 21st. The paper actually ran 3 stories on this fact. The conclusion of all of those stories and this entry is: It totally sucks not to have sunshine.

But, as I mentioned, the sun did come out for a visit yesterday. I managed to spend a bit of time outside soaking it in because I just had no way of knowing if it was ever coming back... and sure enough, it was gone again today.

At least the days are getting longer, and my spirits are getting brighter.

andre

What is it about January 1st and the following week that has the entire world compelled to say happy new year every 5 minutes? I mean besides the obvious fact that it is a new year (according to the calendar we have, as a world, adopted as a standard).

And what in the world posseses journalists and media to re-cap, count down and predict ad nausium.

And what's with the obsession with new born babies? There isn't anything special about someone born at January 1st 00:00:01am EST (eastern standard time) when someone else several time zones ahead was born at 01:26:37am is technically more of a new year's baby.

And Resolutions?

Tradition. That's what it is. So in this grand tradition I share the following:

Happy New Year.

Countdowns:
The top 5 baby names of 2004 (The computers are still working on the 2005 results):

Girls:
5 Hailey
4 Kaitlyn
3 Emily
2 Madison
1 Emma

Boys:
5 Matthew
4 Ryan
3 Ethan
2 Aidan
1 Jacob

Recap of 2005:
2005 had a war in Iraq, 2 election calls in Canada, and a couple of huricanes.

I had a thought today. Only things that are free have any real value.

andre

So I just heard on the news today that three fourteen (14) year old boys were charged with the mugging of an eighty-four (84) year old woman in Toronto. The attack left the woman with a broken arm and a broken jaw.

WTF?!?! Did they think what they were doing was cool? Did they think that they were being big men? Bad asses? Were they trying to get some street cred? Impress women? Win a bet?

Or (most likely) did they just wake up and overdose on retrad pills?

WTF???? I just don't get it.

News flash to the punks that did this. You are a bunch of fucking losers... the epitome of uncool. Way to go - you managed to mug a frail woman that is more than twice your combined age! AND THERE WERE THREE OF YOU.

andre

14 days until the days start getting longer again.

Thank goodness.

No wonder there is a festival of lights. No wonder there is a Christmas. No wonder there is great celebration at towards the end of December.

If I were an alien dropped off on this planet (specifically in the northern hemisphere), with absolutely no knowlege of earth customs, I would celebrate the winter solstice. Darkness at 4:30pm is just plain wrong... and any event that marks the beggining of the end of this darkness deserves to be celebrated.

andre

For some strange reason I was thinking about an old jean jacket that I used to own.

Back in highschool I had made myself a pretty keen jacket. It started off as a brand spanking new jacket and I roughed it up and bleached it and got it worn in in no time at all. I then drew and painted a band logo on the back and studded it with pins and all sorts of nonsense.

Even though I didn't wear the jacket all that often - it was arguably my favorite jacket of all time.

However, at some point my mother tossed it out without consulting me. Outrage! But, that's what mothers do. Her logic was that since I didn't wear it all that often - and it looked so beat up - that I didn't want it.

I did in fact want it - but it was too late and no amount of protesting then or now was going to bring it back.

So tonight I was just thinking about how I will never see that jacket again. I wondered could it even be possible to ever find it again? Where is that jacket.

The answer of course is in the middle of some landfill. One of my favorite articles of clothing is 15 years burried in a mound of rubbish. Lost forever.

Its Sunday - and I am sick.

I've picked up some kind of bug and I've got a cold.

The only good thing about this cold is that I get to flake out on the couch all day. There are few genuine excuses to waste a day on the couch - but being sick is certainly one of them.

The cool thing about this day of flake is that I have a laptop. Not only can I watch baaaaad sunday afternoon programming on the telivision - i can also lie on my back and play with my computer.

So here I am - flat on my back - snot dripping out my nose - and a keypad in front of me allowing me to tell you about all the gory details. So cool.

andre

I went on a micro zen learning trip today...

Starting with Number stations and the chatter of spies and drug dealers on the airwaves, to MI6 and MI5, to Canadian wire intelligence, to ECHELON, to UKUSA, to a UK Band with Canada in their name that makes techno music that includes hidden messages and codes.

So what's the point? Nothing really... but with half an hour, and internet connection and a fun resource like wikipedia you recognize the power of hypertext as an ideal zen learning tool.

I've been a smoker for many years now. *gasp* Yes, yes, I'm an awful person that pollutes the air that other non-smokers have to breathe. Yup, I'm the guy gumming up his lungs with tar and poison and... chemicals... and ... ummm... nicotastic heaven...

Hmmmm yeah - smoking. I like it. Despite all the bad - its so darn good.

"boooooo," *hisssss* erupts the crowd of anti smoking activists and health officials.

Hey look. I don't advocate smoking - nor do I even think its such a great idea to smoke. I'm just saying that I've enjoyed my years of smoking. Yeah, it may just be the nicotine talking, but there are quite a few happy memories of fun smoke filled bars, cafes, parties and events.

But, lets face the facts. It IS bad for you. And it really is a stinky habit - especially if you smoke at home. So, I've once again banned smoking in my house.

"But you like smoking." Fuck yeah - especially when I work at my computer - but this is for the greater good. By not smoking in the house I have already cut back by half - leaving me more cash to stimulate the economy.