In Search of Saving Serum for Snake Strike

So a few weeks ago I came across a banner advertisement for a search engine. I think the search engine was Windows Live Search, but I'm not sure (I had snapped a screen cap of ad in question, but that went the way of the rest of the stuff on my computer). This advertisement suggested that it was the way to find what you were looking for right away, or something like that. You know, a fast search engine with quick and accurate results. In this banner ad there was a picture of some of the site, these slogans and such, and inside of the search bar was written "antivenom."

Yep. Thats right. Antivenom.

I have a feeling that if you have a desperate need for quick and accurate results on "antivenom" it might be too late for you. Perhaps calling 911 might be a more pertinent exercise.

Now I can see a reason for such a search to be necessary. Lets say that you keep your house full of poisonous snakes. And lets say that you have a medicine cabinet full of the antivenoms for such snakes. You know, just to be safe. Now you were bitten by a snake, and while you are able to tell what snake it was that bit you, you can't remember what antivenom goes with that snake. So you need to do a quick websearch to find the results. Then you take the antivenom and everything is dandy in short time.

Otherwise, you'd be better off searching for plush coffins and sending out e-vites to your funeral.

512 MB DDR of Memory Loss

Good news! Within the last 6 months I have lost a good portion of my last 5 years or so due to unfortuitous circumstances. Oh wait, that's bad news.

To begin with, during the summer the house we were staying in, which had no history of basement flooding, flooded, ruining about half of my collection of books, from school and otherwise. There was my collection of Tom Clancy novels, that had been purchased second hand for the most part. Not a huge loss, certainly not monetarily anyways, but disappointing.

It was the hefty volume of books on religion and politics and other topics that I had collected throughout my time as a student that was the more devastating. Some of these I hadn't done much reading of in the first place, but many of them had been very useful. A copy of Dr. Koyzis' Political Visions and Illusions which I had re-purchased (when I first took the course it wasn't published yet, and I had only a rough Redeemer-bound copy) and had yet to crack open to re-read yet. There was a book by Glenn Tinder called The Political Meaning of Christianity which I ended up wholly disagreeing with, but was the fodder for the best essay I've written. There was a book called In Search of Authentic Faith which I bought prior to coming to university, hoping to use it for a paper at some point, which finally came to fruition in my final year.

Now, more recently, I've had another deletion of my recent history. This past Monday, with the smallish ice storm that we had, my computer ceased to perform its normal function. It turns out my Windows XP was corrupted by an erroneous couple of megabites which had somehow become useless (power surge, though I had a power surge protected bar, or something else, who knows). Now, unfortunately this means that I had to completely reformat my hard drive, which further means I have lost everything from this computer.

All of my schoolwork is gone. However, the papers, the most important part, I still have in hard copies for the most part. I did lose most of my typed notes, some smaller assignments that I didn't bother keeping paper copies of, and probably some other school-related stuff. Luckily I found out that one assignment that I did and only emailed to my professor and required an insane amount of work (and would've required over 30 pages of printed material, thus me not printing) was salvaged thanks to the fact that I had sent it to Dan so he could know what he might be in for in the future.

Media-wise, I've lost all my music, movies, pictures, and everything else. I lost my awesome archer that I built up in Diablo. I lost a number of movies that were relatively difficult to get ahold of. I lost a lot of pictures, though not a whole lot of personal ones, but stuff that won't be recoverable (but thanks to PhotoBucket I have retained some of the more important one). The music is probably the most devastating thing, though. There are some rare songs I found, which are going to be very hard to replace. This is particularly true of my covers list. Who knows if I will be able to find back my version of Ozzie Ozbourne doing Staying Alive, or Holly McNarland doing In The Air Tonight or Marilyn Manson doing Golden Years. Luckily, most of my music and movies are on Dan's external hard drive thanks to some file-sharing done a while back, but most of the rare stuff is gone. Luckily, I didn't have to buy a new computer that I can't afford. But I have had to spend this weekend re-installing my computer and whatnot.

Now, when two events like this happen within a relatively short time, you start to get ideas. I begin to wonder what God might be telling me. No ideas, though. That said, I am strangely comfortable with the whole situation. I would've expected to be lot more upset about losing all of these items, these tokens of the last years. But then again, maybe it is time for a change...

This Omnibus Stops At All Railroad Crossings

For those of you who haven't found it worth your time to follow the links on the sidebar o'er there, I have decided to clue you in to some of the funniest internet videos I have ever seen. I am referring to Ask A Ninja. You have questions, ninja's got answers. So far the best video has been Ninja Omnibus, as posted right here:

Boat-loads of exuding joy and uncontained happiness were experienced when I hit the site again myself and found that they had done a sequel to Ninja Omnibus, entitled Ninja Omnideuce. Check it out.

Oh, the laughing.

Selection by Affection and Rejection of Election

No, not that kind of election. The Calvinists are once again confused.

So, NHL All-Star Game voting finished earlier this week. While I'm unsure of the final tally, it seems that Rory Fitzpatrick (as of a week prior to the closing of the ballots) rounded out number 3 on the most voted for defensemen.

Who?

Exactly.

For those of you outside of the "know", Rory Fitzpatrick is a defenseman for the Vancouver Canucks. And he's not very good. When I first heard of this guy (I'm a little late on writing about this, as the other recent posts were a little more time sensitive) he had yet to register a point this season, and had only played about half of Vancouver's games (as of now he has played 26 of Vancouver's 41 games, and registered his first point last on my birthday, the 30th).

Despite this, a group of people started a campaign to get Rory into the All-Star game. It has hit all sorts of news outlets and has become one of the most visible viral internet "buzzes" that I have ever seen. Don Cherry commented that it was a joke, and that they were laughing at him. Gretzky said that while it was great for Fitzpatrick, the NHL should step in and intervene.
Personally I think that this entire campaign is great. And I have two reasons for this, and they are extremely different.

First, I agree with Ron McLean when he said "The fans are saying, 'Hey, you know who we like? We like Rory Fitzpatrick. We just don't (only) like the skilled guys.'" I agree. People shouldn't be up in arms because of this (especially because I'm not sure of the original motives of the first campainers). Would the same outcry have come if last year Andrej Meszaros would have been written in even though his points were meager but his +/- was easily the top of the league all year and is a defenseman, whose job it is to keep goals from going in? (early in this season he was at the top too, but has since dropped significantly).

Secondly, and almost conversely, I think it forces the NHL to take a look at the voting process for the All-Star teams. I would say that this is the main reason for my support of the Vote For Rory campaign (though I haven't voted). I know it seems semi-hypocritical to support both stands, but hear me out. I tend to be more of the persuasion that the most skilled players should go to the All-Star game (now, as I said with Meszaros, there is some wiggle room). The fact that a mob can vote in whoever they please might make them look twice at a wholly democratic system. I mean, hockey is a skill game. This isn't politics where there are policies and parties and you can choose who best suits your political palate. Certain folks should make it, and certain folks definitely should not (Fitzpatrick being one of the latter) because there is a skill to playing hockey, and getting points is generally quite related to such a skill (though, I think for defensemen other characteristics should be looked at too). Personally, I would like to see a hybrid of voting and the decision of a coach. Say, that the voters decide a list for the All-Star team coach to choose from, and he makes the best team from the list that he can. Thats just one idea though.

I feel the same way when radio-stations and others make "100 best guitarists of all time" lists and such. I mean, I can make a list of who I think should make a list like that (who are actually the most skilled), who I would personally put on a list like that (who I prefer), and what the list will look like upon compilation (how the listeners actually voted). And only one of those lists will include members of AC/DC.

Basically, I dislike "democracy" in situations like this. I understand that the NHL and radio-stations want people to be included, but when it occurs like this, people just vote for their favourite, and not necessarily the most skilled. And for that reason, I say, vote for Rory (even though you can't anymore).