DarrenConley.com

At Brock, the school where I am in the process of completing my MA in Applied Linguistics, there is a large computer lab that is generally known as "The Fishbowl".  There are maybe 200 computers in this room, and the entire length of one of its walls is made of glass, looking out onto one of the major hallways of the institution.  Thus, as people walk the length of this hall on the way to their classes, they have a good 20 or 30 seconds to stare at all of the computer users, and pick out the hotties.

However, as I walk down this hall, my eyes always drift to the iMac table : 4 white iMacs clustered together, shining like beautiful, foreign supermodels who everyone would like to touch but nobody is quite sure that they know how.

By late morning, the fish bowl fills up pretty fast, and then a line forms outside the room waiting for computers to become available.  As I type this, sitting in the fish bowl, there are at least 17 people waiting to get in.  But while every PC is in use, only two of the iMacs are occupied, and I'm at one of them.

I have no idea why nobody will use the iMacs.  They have all the same academic programs that are on the other machines, they are connected to the same University network, and they will accept the same input devices as the PCs will (memory sticks, etc.)  The only explanation I can come up with is that these computers seem "foreign" to PC users, and because of this, they are unwilling to interact with them.

Computer racism.   

I myself had never really used a Mac before a few months ago, but I'd heard a lot of hype about how great they were, so I figured "Why not try one out?"  After all, I have free unlimited access to them through the University, and if I screw anything up, it's not like it's MY computer.  I pulled up a chair, entered my login ID, and went for a test drive.

Let me say this: I had never known true aesthetic beauty in the computer world until I experienced the iMac.  It started just by touching the mouse.  It was so smooth and shiny, with a tiny scroll-ball which was subtle but effective.  The scroll-ball allowed me to move horizontally and vertically, which I had not experienced before, and the gentle clicking that the Apple mouse encouraged was… soothing?  I don't know how to explain it, but just FEELING this mouse was an almost spiritual experience.  It was a combination of relaxing, erotic, and the impression that you're handling something rare and precious.

The magic only continues when you actually look at the monitor.  Everything looks beautiful.  My website looks like it decended from heaven itself.  I think I could even post a picture of Michael Jackson here, and it would look beautiful on an iMac.  The operating system looks like it was handed to me by someone from the future – a beautiful, beautiful future, filled with beauty.  Every window on the screen has rounded corners and soft shadows…

You know, it just occurred to me that I sound a tad homosexual describing how aesthetically pleasing this iMac is, but I'm telling ya, if thinking that an iMac is beautiful can be considered "gay", then I'm coming out of the cyber-closet.  This has nothing to do with the fact that the input ports are on the back of the iMac, by the way.

The greatest thing about the iMacs at Brock is that they are still a secret.  I can bypass a line of 17 people waiting to get into a full computer lab, and use one of the iMacs almost any time I want.  I could let the people waiting in line know that the iMacs do everything they want them to do while giving them a cyber-beauty-orgasm, but then I think "If they're afraid to explore something beautiful and different, that's their own problem."

Racist jerks. 

Every now and then, I decide to take a break from creativity and put up a post linking to a wack of YouTube videos for you to enjoy.  Today, I offer a selection of cartoons from the 80s.  (click the play button in the bottom left corner of each video to watch them)  These aren't the cartoons that are back in "retro" (like Transformers or G.I. Joe); these are the ones you may have forgotten about, but will instantly remember once you start watching them again.  So sit back, relax, and enjoy some childhood nostalgia.  

Note: Lately YouTube is only allowing me to watch about 8 videos on one webpage before it causes the sound to cut out.  I don't know why this happens, but if it does, just hit reload on your browser and try again. 

M.A.S.K. was a great show for a few reasons.  First, the characters and animation were actually half-decent.  Second, you had vehicles that transformed into – OTHER VEHICLES!  Not quite as good as Transformers, but close.  Finally, I LOVE the theme music to this cartoon.  It could be my favourite theme music of the 80s cartoon era altogether.

The Real Ghostbusters was, of course, the cartoon that was based on the movie.  I always wondered why they were called The Real Ghostbusters.  It turns out that Filmation actually had a cartoon called Ghostbusters before they made the movie, and the movie-makers made the film without realizing that there was a copyright issue.  In order to avoid another copyright problem, they had to change the title of the cartoon that was based on the movie, and this is what we got.

Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors was actually written by the same guy who created Babylon 5 (JMS).  Hardly anyone remembers this cartoon, but my brother and I had a few of these toys, for some reason.  This show gets my vote for second-best 80s theme song, after M.A.S.K.

Thundercats – Hands down the best animation of any opening sequence of an 80s cartoon.  I have a higher quality copy of this video on my computer, and there are points at which I pause it and think "how did they ever think to animate it that way?!"  The actual show didn't do a lot for me, but my brother loved it.  

He-man was a show that I started watching as "filler" until better cartoons came on, but after a while, I got into it.  I always wondered what Orko looked like under that hood – I imagined some sort of owl-like creature.  And was I the only one who had a crush on the sorceress?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was actually a little after my time, but it was the biggest thing around for a while.  I regret to say that I've never read any of the original comics, but I hear they're excellent.

Voltron (Intro) – This is the introduction to the version with the lions, which most people consider to be the definitive Voltron incarnation.  The best thing about this is hearing the voice of Optimus Prime as the narrator.

Voltron (Lion Formation) – The sequence where the lions join together to form Voltron.  I had forgotten about the whole preamble where they say "Activate interlock, dynotherms connnected…"  That really brings back memories.

Voltron (Vehicle Formation) – I remember seeing this for the first time and wondering "where are the lions?!"  Actually though, I thought these vehicles were really cool, the way they could form into air, land, and sea super-vehicles, and form into Voltron as well.  Does anyone know why there were two versions?

Centurions – This show was actually not bad.  I love the idea of high-tech armor, and that's what this show was all about.  The only sucky thing is that one of the guys uses water-technology, so they always had to find a way to bring a water-based fight into the equation.

Gobots actually came out before Transformers, but were crazily dumb-tarded in comparison.  When Transformers appeared on the scene, Gobots became the K-mart bargain-bin filler, and Transformers became the average boy's stocking stuffer.  The only thing I liked about the show was how their home planet looked like an apple core.

The Robotix TV show was a loose storyline built around some very cool robotic construction-type toys that had motors so you could make them move.  The cartoon was on on Sunday mornings while we were at church, so we had to set the VCR to record it every week.  For some reason I remember making an audio recording of the theme music, so I could listen to it in my room.

Saturday Supercade was my absolute favourite TV show when it first came out, mostly because it was based on video games, which I was obsessed with as a child.  My favourite video game used to be Q*Bert, whose cartoon segment on Saturday Supercade was the most interesting.  I could still sing the music to this cartoon 20 years after it finished airing, and before I found it on the internet.

To this day, I'll never understand why myspace.com has become such a huge web-presence.  It takes forever to load most people's pages, there's advertising galore, and you practically need a graduate degree to figure out how to modify the page layout.  Besides all that, the default layout is, for the most part, ugly.

That is, until Dave Lapsley came along.

Dave has been one of my closest friends ever since I met him back when we were 13 years old.  He was the most hyper kid I knew at that time, and frankly, he scared the crap out of me.  But I quickly got over it when I found out he had Nintendo. Lately, he's been touring out west, taking over the Toronto acting scene, and making the internet a more aesthetic place to hang out.  He was also in my wedding party.

Dave is one of those people who is a genius, but in all the ways that have no potential for financial income.  He had the entire script to Back to the Future memorized as a child.  He can complete a standard Rubik's cube in under two minutes.  He is the undisputed champion of Heretic.  He knows more useless facts, phone numbers, and birthdays than anyone else I have ever met.  Women who he has never met walk up to him and ask him if they can touch a lock of his golden curls. 

And now, he has done the impossible and made myspace look good.

With a ferocious intensity unseen in most who are outside of the badger-wrestling profession, Dave focused all of his tremendous mental energies into designing a myspace template that is both pleasing to the eye, and doesn't smack you in the face with the kitsch-hammer.  I myself would love to learn how to crank out a design like Dave's, but right now all of my free time is being sucked up by posting on this site, and watching live-action Tick episodes online.

It's only a matter of time before every major entity who wants a professional-looking myspace presence comes knocking on Dave's virtual doorstep, asking him to turn down the suck on their profiles.  For now, Dave's skills are being remarkably under-utilized, so if I were you, I would take advantage of this small window of opportunity, head over to Dave's site, and offer him money to make your "space" look good. 

Think of it as being offered Picasso's business card before the whole "cubism" thing took off.

I first registered for a hotmail address sometime back in 1999 or 2000, when I was planning on going to Hong Kong for a week and thought that it would be nice to have a web-based email account.  For the most part, hotmail has generally been good to me over the years.  Yes, I got my share of junkmail, and yes, sometimes the load times were frustrating, but I never complained.  That is, until I experienced the joys of Google's Gmail service.

Now, I'm complaining.

In the past two months of using Gmail for my regular electronic correspondence, I've been spoiled beyond redemption.  Now the very sight of hotmail makes me feel like I'm staring at a VIC 20, or an episode of Rubik, the Amazing Cube.  If there ever was a shark to jump, hotmail has jumped it.

A list of what I hate about hotmail, in no particular order:

• The large ads, which are insanely distracting.  No, Monster.ca, I don't need a job.  No, Lavalife, I'm not "on her hotlist".  I'm married.  Give me an ad for something I need.  Like better email service at Gmail! 
• The load time between emails.  Unless I'm loading up old Transformers cartoons on YouTube, I don't want to wait any longer than 5 seconds between webpages EVER.
• The way I have to load attachments on a separate screen.  I can't remember the number of times that the next screen didn't load properly, and the whole attachment process got screwed up.  Attach this to your next screen, hotmail!
• The way I have to load a separate screen for replying or forwarding.  Ditto to the rant in the item above.
• It isn't formatted properly for Firefox: The text is often overlapping or unreadable.  And everyone knows that Firefox is superior to Internet Explorer in every way.
• SPAM out the French wazoo!  Yes, you heard me – FRENCH!
• The stupid screen that loads up after you log in – Show my message list already!  I don't need a preview teaser of my new messages just so you have an extra screen for advertising!
• Difficulty in exporting contacts to non-Microsoft destinations.  Luckily Gmail had an extremely helpful tutorial available which helped me make the switch-over.
• No tagging or filtering options (besides filtering junkmail).  I mean, we're six years into the new millennium here!  "Hotmail, I'd like to introduce you to the internet in the post-Phantom Menace world."
• And this is the clincher: The freakin' "Server Too Busy" screen!  I spent hours the other day being denied access to my email.  HOURS!  Every time I look at the photo in this post, I'm reminded of the immense loads of suck that hotmail has dished out upon my hindquarters in recent days.

If you're still using hotmail as your only email service, do yourself a favour and get someone with Gmail to invite you on board.  You'll feel like a man who has finally been given a clean glass of water to slate your thirst, after having been forced to drink your own urine for years.

I can still clearly remember being taught how to use toilet paper when I was a child.  I had been trained to use the toilet for some time, but the subtle art of wiping one's butt is acquired less easily than simply dropping your trousers and aiming for the watery porcelain hole. 

I remember thinking that it was so strange that the lack of something (i.e. poo) should signal the completion of the process.  I was used to most things starting with a "something", and ending with a "something else", like making puzzle pieces into a picture, or turning a bowl of cottage cheese into body-and-highchair paint.

Something I was clearly taught as a child was that when you use toilet paper, you fold it into a square, wipe once, fold it in half, wipe again, and then fold it again (now into a smaller square) for the third wipe.  After the third wipe, if there's still anal residue, you grab some more toilet paper, and repeat the process.

It wasn't until I was in university that I discovered that there are people out there who "scrunch", rather than fold.  That is to say, they take a wad of toilet paper, like a large, puffy, cotton ball, and wipe with that.  This variation in wiping technique astounded me.

Not only was I surprised by the fact that it took me almost 20 years to learn about "scrunching", I couldn't believe that there were so many scrunchers out there.  And here's the strangest part – the scrunchers didn't know that there were "folders"!  Here we've had two wildly different variations on ass-wiping, each being done hundreds of thousands of times every day, and nobody seemed to know how other people were doing it.  

Could we say that "the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing"?  No, probably not.

Anyway, in the Conley family, Larissa is a scruncher, and I'm a folder.  She cannot imagine not scrunching to wipe, and I cannot imagine not folding.  I use about four squares' worth of toilet paper in a single wad, and I get three wipes out of those squares.  I'm pretty sure that Larissa, and all of the other scrunchers out there, are not getting anywhere NEAR those kinds of efficiency ratios.  My estimate is a single wipe for 5 to 6 squares for the average scruncher.  If my calculations are correct, I should be getting 15 wipes for every 4 wipes of Larissa's.

That, my friends, is a whole lot more wiping.

In conclusion, I'd like to ask that those of you who scrunch to take the time to try folding.  It's far more efficient, and it could save you money in TP costs.  That is, unless the scrunchers are the ones keeping the toilet paper companies in business with all that paper use.  How about this, I'll convince Larissa to start folding, and the rest of you keep scrunching so that Charmin stays in business.

If any of you are dedicated folders or scrunchers, please feel free to tell the rest of the world about it in the comments section. 

It is my dream, one day, to have millions of people around the world waking up and asking themselves "I wonder what new, insightful, thought-provoking and grammatically-accurate posts are available for viewing on DarrenConley.com this morning?  Let's gather the whole family around the computer and enjoy some happy-fun time, followed perhaps by some lively discussion regarding the new ideas which Darren will impart to us!"

I know what you're all thinking: "Keep dreaming, Darren."

The truth is that, for such a little site that is really just here so that I can have fun, I get far more visitors than I usually expect.  A large part of my regular traffic comes on Monday nights and Tuesday mornings, just after the newest Audio Edition is posted on The Movie Blog, along with a link to my site.  The usual trend is that my visitor stats will shoot up for a day or so, and then steadily drop throughout the rest of the week.

This past week, however, I noticed that my stats have been shaping up a little differently.  If you look at the picture for this post, you'll see that I had a jump in my traffic on the Monday (as usual), but instead of the steady drop, I've instead seen only a very gradual decline in traffic, which seems to be leveling off.  I find this astounding, since all I've posted since Monday has been a story about me possibly creating some Transformers, a video which most people have already seen, and a short conversation about alien babies.

I am, of course, not complaining at all.  This trend is only one of many steps towards my eventual attainment of world-domination in the category of "Entertaining Personal Blogs That Aren't About Parenthood, Pets, or Pornography" – A category which is growing smaller by the day, to be sure. 

Nonetheless, I give a hearty thanks to all of you who have made this changing trend in my visitorship possible.  Keep on coming back, and remember to share this blog with your friends, so that one day my dream can be a reality.

If you'd like to see some other stats for DarrenConley.com, click on the picture of the chart above. 

Last night, after we received some pictures of our friends' newborn baby, Larissa and I had this conversation: 

Larissa:  Look at that kid!  He looks like an alien!

Darren:  It's not the best baby picture I've ever seen.

L:  We could sell that picture to the National Enquirer!

D:  Yeah, I'm sure [name removed to protect alien baby's mother] would love seeing her kid in the supermarket lineup!

L:  We're not taking ANY pictures of our kids until they're cute!

In Larissa's defense, you have to understand that she thinks all newborn babies are ugly.  And in both of our defenses, you have to understand that we're not pregnant.  Not that any rumours have ever been started on the internet or anything.

Some of you may have noticed the recent campaign by Dove (makers of soap, for the most part) asking questions about "real beauty".  While I think that society's conceptions of beauty make for interesting points of discussion, and that the issue is a little more complicated than a soap-making company portrays it as, I was truly astounded by Dove's Evolution video, which has been circulating the 'net for a few weeks now. 

You can watch the video at Dove's website, or, to save yourself an extra mouse-click, check out the YouTube video below.  The freakiest part for me was when they lengthened the model's neck and enlarged the eyes.  Leave a comment with your reaction.

Years ago, when I was in the later years of elementary school, I had a friend named Sonny.  Sonny was one of those friends who you didn't choose – they chose you.  He would follow me around at recess and talk to me about things he had done on the weekend, or crazy ideas he had, and I would just smile and nod because I didn't really want to talk to him, but I didn't have the heart to tell him to go away. 

He didn't have many friends.  He had a turban.  I went to a very white school.  Kids in grade 7 are not quite as gung-ho on multiculturalism as modern, adult Canadians.

Anyway, this one day I was sitting around at home, thinking about Transformers (as I often did at that age), and trying to come up with some cool new Transformer ideas.  I decided that it would be really cool if there were a group of Transformers who turned into monster-type creatures, like the Dinobots, but not dinosaur-related.  

Later that week, while talking to Sonny at recess, I told him about my monster-Transformers idea.  He said that it sounded really cool,  and then he told me about an idea of his that involved Transformers who turned into hi-tech futuristic vehicles.  I told him that his idea sounded really cool too, although in actuality I thought it sounded kinda dopey, and that my idea was much better.  

A few days later, Sonny told me that he had written down both of our ideas, and sent them to Hasbro in a letter, hoping that they would produce the toys we had conceptualized.  At the time, I was all like "Hey man, that's great!  Maybe that will happen!"  What I was really thinking was "Why in the world would a toy company listen to the ideas of 12-year-olds?  Especially a 12-year-old with a turban, who is, quite obviously, weird?" 

You see, aside from my discriminating against Sonny because of his turban, Sonny also had a tendency to tell crazy stories, in order to try to impress people and make friends.

Months passed, life moved on, and I completely forgot about Sonny's letter to Hasbro, and my monster-based Transformer ideas.  Next thing I know, Hasbro has produced two new sets of Transformers: One set made up of robots that transform into monsters (called Terrorcons), and another set made up of robots that turn into hi-tech vehicles, (called Technobots).  

At the time, I gladly accepted them into the ranks of the Transformer toys that I had known and loved for so long, and it wasn't until a few years later (sometime in high school) that I remembered having talked to Sonny about that monster idea, and hearing about Sonny's high-tech idea and how he had written to Hasbro.  Could it be just a coincidence that we had thought of these ideas at the same time as the toy company?  Had they really taken Sonny's letter into consideration when designing the new toyline?

To this day, I'm still not sure if I truly had a part in contributing to the development of these Transformers.  I lost touch with Sonny after we went to different high schools, and have no idea if he even remembers this story. 

If anyone reading this blog has any connection to the Transformer guys at Hasbro, or knows how to get in touch with them, let me know.  I'd love to know if the Technobots and Terrorcons really do exist because some turban-wearing kid from Billy Green Public School in Canada decided to listen to my ideas on the playground and wrote a letter to the most sucessful toy company in North America at that time.

Does anyone remember the song Promise of a New Day by Paula Abdul, from back in 1991?  I was listening to it this morning (part of my retro-Friday morning music routine) and thinking about the fact that every time I hear it, I’m convinced that she’s saying “Evil’s calling, and it's calling your name”, which I find very funny, since the song does not sound evil in any way.  Upon further reflection, I thought that she’s probably singing “Eve is calling, and she’s calling your name”, since the song is about time, renewal, people being happy, etc. etc., and Eve would be a good Mother Nature kind of metaphor.

So just now I checked it out online, in order to find out what the actual lyrics are, and what she’s really singing is “Eagle’s calling, and he’s calling your name”.  That’s right: Eagle.  How dumb-tardedly stupid is that?  I don’t care what the actual lyric is, I’m going to keep believing that it’s “Evil”, because that is much cooler.

In other news, I’m using the word “dumb-tarded” lately as a substitute for “retarded”, since I believe that it is more politically correct.  Apparently the retards were all complaining about being compared to George Bush and Paula Abdul lyrics, so I’m being progressive and changing my vocabulary.  It’s better than asking retards to “get over it”.  They have enough to deal with already (i.e. the retardedness).

Speaking of being progressive, I was thinking about the social politeness factors involved in door-holding today.  Generally speaking, I believe North American society practices a fair amount of gender-equality when it comes to holding doors: I hold doors for whoever is behind me, male or female, and most people who are in front of me do the same.  What is changing (I believe) is the belief about whether or not to give the courtesy “thank you” when someone holds the door for you.

Now, there’s no doubt in my mind that when someone goes out of their way for you, you should offer them a polite word of thanks.  But when it comes to door-holding, is that behaviour not expected these days?  And if it’s expected, should we be offering thank yous every time that behaviour is demonstrated?  To put this into perspective, when a bus driver stops at my bus stop and opens the door of the bus for me, I don’t say “Thank you very much, sir, for allowing me entry to your bus.”  I just get on, flash my pass, and look for a seat that’s not surrounded by retar- I mean, dumb-tards.  

One could say that the bus driver is paid to stop and open the door of the bus, so he doesn’t require my thanks, but on the other hand, if someone were paid to be a doorman, I would probably feel more obligated to say “thank you” to him instead of to an ordinary citizen.  

What it comes down to is the fact that we deal with so many doors in any given day, and because of this, it starts to feel redundant having to say “thank you” to everyone who walks through a door in front of you without letting it slam in your face.  When I walked into the university today, I said “thanks” to the guy in front of me, which came out only as “ks”, since it was so quietly said, and I didn’t want to startle the people around me with an inappropriately loud “thanks”.  The person behind me said nothing as I held the door for her, and I felt neither surprise, nor disappointment.

The only thing I thought was “this will make an interesting blog entry, along with some information about Paula Abdul lyrics”.