Assortments Today » vancouver

Olympics Closing Ceremony

Assorter — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:06:23 +0000

It’s become a bit of a tradition for me to blog about the Olympics closing ceremony. Despite feeling particularly incensed by NBC’s coverage of these Olympics, I definitely still feel a sense of melancholy to see the Olympics go away after having their company for the past two weeks. These Olympics were particularly memorable and poignant for me because I had the great fortune to actually attend three events – my first Olympics experience ever! I saw ski jump, short track speed skating, and ice hockey, in an incredible 4 day weekend in Vancouver. Being surrounded by thousands of people, from all over the world, and sharing a common bond of friendship and passion for the games, was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Interestingly enough, it’s also one of the few times that I’ve blatantly displayed USA flare non-stop; and it was a blast. I (finally) saw Whistler for the first time, I soaked up lots of fun and excitement in Vancouver, I received plenty of good-natured ribbing from lots of friendly Canadians (which I tried to return in kind!) and I got out of it a once-in-a-lifetime experience. So, with that, adieu Vancouver Winter Olympics – you’ll be missed!

But most assuredly not forgotten. I took about 500 photos from my Olympics experience, and I’m slowly uploading some of those pictures in different batches. There’s a total of four sets, and I’ve already uploaded one (“pregame”). Look for the remaining sets over the next couple weeks!

Next stop, London?

Getting into the Olympic spirit

Assorter — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 02:02:33 +0000

Almost time…

Super Bowl was fun… and avast!

Assorter — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:24:10 +0000

Haven’t updated the blog in a while, and the Super Bowl is as good a topic as any! So, this was definitely one of the most exciting and action-packed Super Bowls for me in recent history, right up there with and likely exceeding the 2008 Giants-Patriots game. I was actually rooting for the Colts going into the game, but when the Saints stumbled to a ten-point deficit in the first quarter, I found myself starting to root for the underdog. There were just so many reasons to root for the Saints; first Super Bowl appearance in franchise history; the spirit of New Orleans, Drew Brees actually being a likable quarterback; and of course, the spectacle of Bourbon Street partying like its 1999 with a Saints’ victory. I am a big Peyton Manning fan, and I have a lot of respect for him and the Colts, so I wouldn’t have minded seeing them win. But by the fourth quarter, it seemed like the come-from-behind victory for the Saints was in the stars, and it was just so much more fun to root for that. The first half felt like a bit of a snoozer, but things really picked up in the second half. I was impressed with Sean Peyton’s gutsy display of trickery and strategery; the onside kick to open the second half was a real stunner. What a way to write yourself into Super Bowl history! And the fourth-quarter Manning interception had us all screaming. All in all, I’d say this was a very satisfying Super Bowl. I think the only part that didn’t live up to the hype was the commercials, which I’ve frankly already forgotten about. I guess even the Super Bowl isn’t immune to the effects of a down economy.

Hmm, anything else? In a bit of geeky news, I ditched Microsoft Security Essentials and moved to avast! antivirus. Security Essentials was okay, but it lacked some pretty basic things (like a frickin’ pause button) and it doesn’t have as many realtime scanners as avast!. So, avast! it is. I think it’s a superior solution and so far I like it, but staying virus free is ultimately dependent on the actions of the user, don’t you think?

Oh, and one last thing. I’m going to be in Vancouver in two weeks for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Huzzah!

Interesting Things

Assorter — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 05:36:22 +0000

It’s official, I’m going to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics! Hooray and huzzah! Of course, I’m going as a spectator. As soon as they make excessive geekiness an Olympic sport, I’ll be proud to represent the country. Anyway, I got tickets to see ice hockey and short track speed skating, and even though the Winter Olympics are more than a year away, I’m already ridiculously pumped. I’ve always wanted to attend the Olympics, and now that dream will be a reality! Man, going to the Olympics! SWEET!

In other news, thanks to some very helpful info provided by this site, I’ve finally gotten Shadowbox JS to display multi-line captions at the bottom of pictures in the gallery. So, no more clipped captions. Cool. Also, I confirmed that videos aren’t loading in the gallery due to a technical issue with kPicasa gallery, so if you want to see videos in the picture albums, you’ll need to view them directly through my Picasa Web Albums gallery. As further explanation for this, for those who didn’t realize, kPicasa gallery is a WordPress extension that allows you to display your Picasa Web Albums gallery through WordPress. It accomplishes this magnificent task through creative programming and the magic of PHP. If you want the full story, see this post. So, the bottom line is that the gallery on my blog is just my Picasa web albums gallery displayed inside my blog via a WordPress extension, and that WordPress extension does not, at present, support videos. All in due time, of course.

One last piece of news. I did an about face of sorts and decided to use a personalized iGoogle page as my homepage. Why, you ask? Because there’s too much content on the Internet to individually check every time you open your browser (which should be Firefox, by the way). iGoogle solves this problem by aggregating all of that content into one, convenient, customizable place. Of course, I added an RSS feed for my blog.

Next issue to tackle, should I join Facebook?

By the way, help? It’s kind of wet.