The Jeff R Project

Rebecca Bollwitt (Over at Miss604.com) shared some new videos of our beautiful city and I thought I’d re-share them here to remind everyone why we love living here so much.

The first video is a time-lapse of Danny Askew‘s “summer” – which actually starts during the Olympics. It’s a little strange as it starts with Vancouver and the Olympics and suddenly jumps to Las Vegas for about 20 seconds, and then back to Vancouver and some lakes in the forest somewhere. It’s a great video though and the time-lapse is quite nice.

Summer 2010 Timelapse Reel from Danny Askew on Vimeo.

Next up is a sort of walking tour of downtown Vancouver. Brandon Moza was testing his Canon camera and got some amazing video. If it was only a matter of buying the same camera to get the same quality video, I’d be out shooting tomorrow.

Vancouver – Testing the Canon 7D from Brandon Moza on Vimeo.

Whilst twiddling around the interwebs yesterday, I happened across a post that was all about movie infographics from various sources.

What’s an infographic you ask? Basically a graphical (pictoral) representation of information. Like a subway map or historical timeline. Click the link you passed over to read about them on Wikipedia.

Being a lover of movies and such, this collection was amazing, so I thought I’d share a couple of them.

The Trilogy Meter

Click on it to get a better look at it, but here it is in a nutshell. MOST trilogies go down hill (quickly) after the first movie. Now like most “review” type things, it’s subjective opinion and this is one guy‘s opinion (not mine). Take a look at the The Matrix, Jurassic Park, Planet of the Apes, Terminator, Batman above.

Now think about Star Wars, Indiana Jones (before the refrigerator incident), Lord Of The Rings, Die Hard, Rocky etc. They held up pretty well through their lifetime.

Here’s a less subjective infographic for you. A comparison of movie monster sizes.

Movie Monsters

This chart shows everything from Chucky and the Wicked Witch (dots at the left end) to Clover (Cloverfield) at the right! Wow. Someone did a bunch of work on this one.

Here are some other posts with movie infographics in them:

http://www.highdefdigest.com/blog/10-awesome-movie-infographics/

http://abduzeedo.com/movies-infographics-collection

http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/22754/1/LOOK-AT-THIS-NOW-MOVIE-AND-OSCAR-INFOGRAPHICS/Page1.html

I’ve noticed a pattern in my life that I think might help some people, so I’m going to force it on share it with you.

Do you ever have moments where you’ve been working on a project/item/report/blog post for a while and you find yourself staring at the computer screen but nothing is happening?

Happens to me a lot. Just staring at a problem and not making any headway.

The experts tell you to think about something else, turn your attention away and distract yourself. Go for a walk, grab a glass of water etc. But if you’re like me, you find yourself inexplicably drawn right back in having made no progress, 30 seconds later.

So what I sometimes do is reboot my computer. Save your work first.

It’s a great way to force yourself away from the problem for 2 or 3 minutes (or more in some cases) and you can’t just jump back into it.

Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but it does force that tiny break which is good for you.

I’ll be right back in about 5 minutes…

Anybody who knows me knows that I have an addiction to Starbucks. Specifically to Venti Sugar Free Vanilla Americanos. And can occasionally be talked down to a grande. Well, that has come to an end thanks to the new HST (and the urging of my beloved husband).

This morning I went to Starbucks for my final hurrah, and because we lacked Splenda for homemade beverages and bought my usual drink and pastry for the first time since the HST went into effect. Not that I haven’t had it in the last 5 days, but we were in Ontario so the taxes were different, plus I usually was buying something for Chris and didn’t know the exact effect of the tax.

Well, let me tell you.

My beloved morning combo has gone from $5.88 to $6.27 with the new HST. That’s a $0.40 rise in the price. Way to much.

So, Starbucks, as much as I love you (and I do), there’s no way to justify this price for me. Even having it on just Saturday and Sunday (which I may still do) would amount to just over $650 per year! That’s an extra mortgage payment!

Starting tomorrow, I’ll be back to brewing coffee in my Tassimo, making cereal or toast for breakfast and drinking a lot more free coffee at work.

Unless the good folks at 6/49 or Lotto Max finally shine upon us, and then I’ll buy my own Starbucks. But I don’t believe that will happen.

Chris and I took a giant step recently. One that would make some of our friends weep openly and question their ability to cope. Many couples would break up in record time if they took this step. But we have faith.

What did we do that was so drastic?

We shut our cable off for the summer.

Yep. And Novus took us seriously. About 3 weeks after the first of the month we came home to static. Last year we cut it down to the basics for the summer and it took them 2 months to make the change.

Cable companies do this for 2 reasons as far as I can tell. One is they hope you change your mind before they get here, the other is that 9/10 cancel requests are place where tenants move and they hope the new occupants will subscribe. Either way a month or two of service costs less than dispatching a warm body, so they leave it on until x amount of time passes or they “have a guy in the area.”

With TV season drawing to a close and our ability to watch shows online increasing daily, plus the impending summer weather (you hear me mother nature?) we want to try to lessen our dependence on the tube.

How’s it going? Other than the 2 – 24 hour delay in watching the 3 or 4 critical shows on TV, it’s good. Rumble gets more playtime, more work gets done, more walks get taken and Chris and I get to spend more quality time together.

Which inevitably means sitting at opposite ends of the couch ignoring each other in favor of our laptops.

I joke. That’s the scary time some other couples would dread. What do you do to fill the time otherwise filled by TV?

I’ll let you know how it goes, but being released from the LCD bonds of the TV feels good so far. Now we watch it on our terms. We may never turn the cable back on.

PS: by never I mean until September.

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