OFFICE-BOB.COM

Considering the current state of the world economy, people aren’t very appreciative of hearing that prices are going up, and they’re even less pleased when it’s something as crucial to their needs as travel.

Translink wants to increase fares by 12.5 percent and, of course, the public doesn’t like the idea. Fortunately, any increases will need to be justified before they’re implemented, and consultants are being brought in to look at other ways Translink can reduce operating costs.

“We’re not looking for savings in strings and paper clips,” (Translink Commissioner Martin) Crilly said. “We’re looking for something substantial.”

While I’m not going to get into the wisdom (or lack thereof) in spending money on outside consultants, it seems to me that by focusing only on Translink’s bus fleet, they’re missing an opportunity to increase revenues in another area – fare evasion, which we already know costs Translink a significant amount.

I know Translink is in the process of adding fare gates and turnstiles to SkyTrain stations, and they already have transit police looking for fare evaders, but I want to offer a proposal which I think merits consideration. It involves bringing in those who’ve been marginalized by society and, by giving them a job, helping them to help themselves while providing a tangible benefit to the community.

Ladies and gentlemen, I propose the Urban Rehabilitation System In New Environments program, in which Translink will hire bears to patrol the transit system and look for fare evaders, which the bears would then eat.

Consider the benefits of this plan:

I urge Translink to consider my proposal and have their consultants evaluate it for feasibility and cost-effectiveness.

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Happy 2012, everyone! Don’t let that whole Mayan calendar thing get you down, ’cause it’s all a bunch of hooey - however, if you’re really looking for a sign of impending doom, consider the fact that Rob Schneider is getting his own TV show.

Sheesh, and I thought reality TV was bad.

Speaking of reality TV, it looks as if I’m going to have to lift my embargo against The Donald and watch Celebrity Apprentice because George Takei is going to be a contestant on the upcoming season. DAMN YOU, TAKEI!

New Year’s Eve was pretty quiet; I haven’t had a NYE fireworks display since the economy tanked, although I almost had an indoor gig this year…they decided against pyro, however, so instead we went out for an early dinner and then I went to watch a show put on by a fellow pyro that I’m sort of mentoring. I loaned him my firing system, though, so I guess that sort of counts as having a show, amirite?

In other pyro-related news:

That’s all for now…I wish each and every one of you a fantastic 2012…

…at least until the Mayans and Rob Schneider are done screwing it up.

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I just did a quick check to see when I last posted something, and holycrapIhaven’tpostedsinceApril?

Wow…I guess I have some catching up to do.

Okay, let me think for a minute…what’s been going on?

In May, I:

In June, I:

In July, I:

In August, I:

In September, I:

This brings me to October, where so far it’s been pretty quiet and I:

That should keep your curiosity sated until after Halloween, when I hope to have more updates.

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This evening I had to make a quick trip to the grocery store to pick up a few things, and while I was waiting in the express line (which, at Safeway, is marked “15 items or fewer” - thank Dog someone gets it right) I noticed there was a leak in the roof that happened to be landing right at the starting end of the conveyor belt at the register. In front of me was a store employee who, I suppose, was going home after her shift as she was buying a few items.

As the cashier on duty tried to mop up the water with paper towels, the woman in front of me called over to one of the other staff and asked if there was another bucket available.

Okay, let’s pause for a moment to consider her choice of words. She didn’t ask for A bucket, she asked for ANOTHER bucket, which would seem to imply that there was more than one leak going on at this particular point in time. It’s been raining pretty steadily all day today, so multiple leaks is certainly within the realm of possibility.

The guy she asked turned to her and said, “Is the roof leaking?” to which she replied, “Nope, it just started raining indoors.”

I damned near fell over laughing because one of my favourite comedians, Bill Engvall, has a bit that he does on a regular basis called “Here’s Your Sign” where he talks about how, if stupid people wore an “I’m Stupid” sign we’d know in advance that we might have trouble with them. The routine consists of repeating the stupid question, the smartass reply it receives, and finishes with him saying, “Here’s your sign.”

Well, after witnessing that exchange I felt it was my solemn duty to let the woman know about Bill Engvall’s routine, and after she finished laughing I got the impression that she might just start using that phrase herself.

She finished her checkout, thanked me, and left. I bought my stuff, drove home, and decided to share my moment of happiness with you.

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Usually, when a cartoon or comic book gets a movie version, there will be much wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth over how “(insert name of writer/director/producer) has ruined my childhood!” I have to admit that I never understood this mentality, possibly because I’ve never felt so invested in one of these source materials that an adaptation would make me angry. Hell, those of you who’ve been reading this blog for a while may remember my entry about how I got Trekkies mad at me because I thought the way they unveiled the new Enterprise in STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE was…well, I’m not sure of the precise wording, and I can’t be bothered to look it up, but I think “masturbatory fantasy” is close, if not exact.

However, I think I’m finally starting to understand why fans get so caught up in the movie adaptations and why they care if they’re not, in their opinion, “perfect.”

How have I reached this conclusion, I hear you ask? Well, dear friends, it’s because there’s now a live action version of SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO.

I was out of high school when STAR BLAZERS, the Americanized/edited version of YAMATO, was being shown on TV but damn, I loved that show. I’m not a complete fanboy – Okay, I have the movies on DVD along with some of the soundtrack albums and a couple of ship figures, but I never bought the books or manga, and I hadn’t been keeping up with news on the movie front, so it was a big shock when I saw the first trailer. Sure, it was in Japanese without subtitles, but it wasn’t like I didn’t know what the hell was going on.

For the first time in my life, when it came to adapting something into a movie, I found myself muttering:

Please, don’t let them screw it up.

The movie was released in Japan in December of last year, and it hasn’t made it to North America yet, but from what little I’ve seen I don’t think I’ve much to worry about.

However, while I can’t talk about the movie I can talk about the music. Though the movie isn’t available here yet, the movie soundtrack is, and I ordered it as soon as I knew about it.

I was hoping that they’d use the original Yamato theme, which they did, and I think that composer Naoki Satou did a great job integrating it into the rest of the score.

Here’s part of the original theme, complete with lyrics (in Japanese, of course…I said I had the albums!)

Here’s part of the opening theme from the movie (you can hear the Yamato theme)

And here’s how the theme is used for the full ship reveal. Perhaps it’s the high school orchestra geek in me peeking through, but I love how the tympani drives the tempo change towards the end.

For those of you who are interested and haven’t seen the clip yet (or those who want to see it again), here’s a promo clip which includes the Yamato taking off. It doesn’t have subtitles but if you know anything about the plot, you won’t miss them.

(Trekkies, take note: THAT is how you do a reveal.)

Satou did a great job with the music and even though I caught occasional similarities to the styles of Alan Silvestri, Jerry Goldsmith and Trevor Jones, the music never felt ripped off or re-used. It’s difficult to tell how well it integrates with the movie when I’ve only seen a few clips but I did enjoy the music on its own – it reminds me of how I was enjoying Prokofiev’s score for ALEXANDER NEVSKY before I’d seen that movie.

If you like movie soundtracks, this one’s worth buying.

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I guess it has been a while since I’ve written anything. It’s easy to let things slide, and for that I offer my abject apologies.

In the hope of making it up to you, today we’re gonna watch some movies. Put away your textbooks, it’s time to let the A/V dorks run the projector.

First, here’s video from a car gag I did a few weeks ago. It was nothing much - just some medium “robotics,” aka spark-producing devices, and a smoke machine - but I hope you like it.

Car Robotics from Office Bob on Vimeo.

(I told you it wasn’t much)

Next up are a couple of videos I took at Western Winter Blast, the annual convention of the Western Pyrotechnic Association. I missed going last year because of the Olympics, so I really enjoyed being able to spend a week in Nevada and Arizona where the weather was warmer and (mostly) drier than in Vancouver - there was some rain on the weekend but it stopped well before the big public display on Saturday.

Both videos are of anvil shooting and while the first anvil was hand-fired with a fuse, it should be pretty obvious why the second anvil was fired electrically:

Anvil Launch from Office Bob on Vimeo.

High altitude Anvil Launch from Office Bob on Vimeo.

(Sorry about the noise; it was windy that day and my phone doesn’t have a wind sock)

That concludes the entertainment portion of the evening. Next time, I plan on giving you a review of one of my latest soundtrack purchases: SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO.

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I was recently made aware of a product recall for a specific model of Ryobi cordless drill due to problems with overheating; according to the CPSC notice Ryobi was replacing all drills at no charge - all you had to do was call a toll-free number to arrange a pickup of your affected drill.

I like my Ryobi drill; it was recommended to me by a friend who builds sets for a living and it’s never given me a spot of trouble but since I prefer to err on the side of caution, I called the number and arranged for a pickup on November 3rd. All I had to do was box up the drill and leave it out for FedEx to pick up – once Ryobi got the drill, they’d ship me a replacement.

I carefully packed the drill up, left it outside my front door in my carport on the 3rd…

…and it wasn’t picked up.

I called Ryobi on the 4th to ask what had happened and CustServRep #2 told me the following:

It would have been nice if this had been explained to me the first time I called, but whatever.

So, I dutifully put the box out on Thursday – nothing.

I left the box out on the following Tuesday – still no pickup.

I called Ryobi on the 10th to let them know that the window had passed without the drill being picked up…and was told by CSR #3 that the number I called didn’t handle the recalls within Canada and that I’d need to call a different toll-free number.

I called the new number and, after navigating the voicemail tree, was told by the recording that in future I should be calling yet another number, but they’d transfer me to said number.

I spent about 10 minutes on hold, spending that time looking up the serial number for my drill because, despite CSR Number 3 (aka “Larry”) telling me that I wouldn’t need the s/n to arrange the pickup, I correctly suspected it would be needed.

Finally I connected with CSR #4, aka “Jane,” who expressed confusion at why I was told I needed to call a different number but took down my information yet again. My new pickup is scheduled for the 18th, which means that I’ll need to wait until the 23rd to call again if the pickup doesn’t happen…but if that happens, it may be Executive E-mail Carpet Bomb time.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

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Up here in Soviet Canuckistan where, thanks to genetic manipulation, the beavers are so large that they can peek over the tops of porta-potties, there’s been a lot of discussion over whether or not Rogers, the first company to carry the iPhone, was going to allow users to share their 6GB/month data plan with their iPad. Rogers has yet to commit one way or the other and says they’re looking into it – but it’s my opinion that if they haven’t said yes or no by now they’re just too chicken to come right out and admit publicly that it’s not going to happen – which has caused a lot of people to cancel plans to buy an iPad 3G.

Well, Canadian iPhone users, I’m happy to announce that after some careful thought and experimentation, I HAVE DISCOVERED A WAY TO SHARE AN IPHONE DATA PLAN WITH AN IPAD, AND IT DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO BE THE 3G MODEL!

I know, this is startling news and I wouldn’t say it unless I had performed the experiments and seen the results with my own eyes. While I could keep the process to myself, or even sell it for obscene amounts of money, the truth deserves to be made public - so for the first time ever, I’m going to tell you how to tether your iPhone to your iPad and share your data bucket between them!*

Here’s what you’ll need:

To set up tethering:

1) Connect the iPhone to the Macintosh with the USB cable.
2) On the iPhone,go into Settings/General/Network/Internet Tethering and turn it on; if presented with the option of Bluetooth r USB, select USB.
3) On the Mac, go into System Preferences and select Sharing.
4) Select Internet Sharing, set it t hare the connection from “iPhone USB” in the pulldown menu, and check the box for AirPort in the “To computers using:” section.
5) Turn on Internet Sharing, and SUCCESS:

Isn’t it amazing? Now even iPad Wi-Fi owners, who couldn’t dream of having unfettered access, can roam at will as they consume data wherever they choose! They can be the envy of all those around them as they thumb their noses at cell providers like Rogers who won’t let them share a data bucket between two devices! And to think, it’s as easy as using AirPort to connect your iPad to your laptop…

…which you have tethered to your iPhone…

…which means you are already online and…

…don’t need the iPad…

Well, drat.

I guess it’s a good thing the printer hasn’t yet started working on that order of glossy, 4-colour brochures I placed this morning. Well, since you’re here, I suppose you may as well watch a video of one of our giant beavers.

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I drove down to Seattle on Friday, June 11, for a live showing of Cinematic Titanic and while the end result was successful, it wasn’t without some difficulty along the way.

The first bit of trouble was when I first placed my ticket order. The purchase link on the venue’s website wasn’t the right one (there were two shows that night and I wanted the 9:30 PM show but I accidentally clicked the link for the 6:00 PM show). This was completely my fault, compounded by the fact that I didn’t notice until I’d completed the ticket purchase.

Cue a moment of panic.

Fortunately, Ticketmaster was willing to credit my purchase, something they won’t usually do, because I’d called them immediately after noticing my mistake. There are a lot of reasons that TM is towards the top of my hate list but when the chips were down and I screwed up, they came through and for that I do thank them.

I went ahead and bought new tickets, making sure that this time I was ordering the right ones, and I thought all was in order – however, it would turn out that I was wrong again.

When I placed the order I’d requested the tickets be mailed to me because it was one of the few free delivery options available to me (one of the reasons I don’t like TM that much is because of all the nickel-and-dime charges they add to the transaction price), and I thought I had plenty of time for the tickets to be delivered…but that was my second mistake. Time passed, but the tickets never arrived.

The day before the show I still hadn’t received the tickets so I called TM customer service and filed a “lost ticket” claim; I was told that the claim would be on file at the venue so as long as I had my ID and the credit card I bought the tickets with, I’d be good. Just to be on the safe side I made sure to take a copy of the custserv phone number with me as I knew they would be open until 9 PM and with a show starting at 9:30, I’d have time to call and get things sorted out if the box office didn’t have a record of my tickets.

It turns out that my plan would be thwarted by a small detail – namely, that the 9:30 ticket price as listed on the venue’s website wasn’t the showtime, but instead was when the box office opened. It could have gotten ugly but, fortunately for us, once we made it to Will Call the ticket claim was on record and we were able to get in - no phone call was required.

Enough about tickets; now I’d like to tell you about how the venue handles their box office because in my opinion, it’s very well done.

Showbox at the Market has a lounge called the Green Room where, if you’re attending a show, you can enjoy drinks and food while waiting for the box office to open. In order to keep crowds from getting unruly each person is given a numbered card representing a group ranging in size from 10 to 20 people. When the box office opens the first group is called in, once they’re lined up and being handled the second group is called, and so on. I think this system is great as it allows you to enjoy yourself before the show without having to worry about standing in line, people cutting in, and so on. We arrived in Seattle around 8:00 PM which gave us time to relax, have a couple of beers and get something to eat (mmm, nachos).

The venue is general seating and for an event like a movie viewing, coming in late can mean you’re stuck on the floor in folding chairs on the dance floor with no slope to allow you to see over the heads of the people in front of you – we were lucky enough to find seats in the back, where there’s balcony-style seating, with minimal sightline interruptions.

The show itself? As with all Cinematic Titanic shows, the movie was terrible but the riffing made up for it…I do wish, however, that Frank would get a new warmup bit as I’ve now heard “Convoluted Man” twice and that’s really one time too many…as Manuel Garcia O’Kelly Davis would say, it’s a “funny once.”

Since the show didn’t start until 10:30 it made for a very late night and we didn’t get home until around 3 am on Saturday, but it was worth it to see live movie riffing. I heartily recommend you attend a CT Live! performance if you can…and if it’s at the Showbox at the Market in Seattle, try the fully-loaded nachos in the Green Room.

CODA: Guess what arrived in Monday’s mail? My “lost” tickets.

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My Dear Friends:

It is with a heavy heart that I write the words you are reading now, and yet I must write them because you have a right to know the Truth.

A Truth so heinous, so insidious that it strikes at the very fabric of our society.

And to think that I am able to give you this Truth because of a television commercial.

Last night I saw an ad for Verizon, in which a mother was going to let her daughter go off with her friends at the mall; she was comfortable doing this because her smartphone had a program which allowed her to track her daughter’s location through the daughter’s cellphone.

Think about this…the ability to track someone by using one of the modern devices that we have come to rely so heavily upon.

I considered the seriousness of this and felt reassured that, should I desire to avoid being followed as I went about my business, I could simply turn off my phone and remove the battery.

But hold on a minute…there are phones that have the battery installed in such a way that they cannot be removed. That’s right, my friends, I’m talking about Apple’s iPhone.

Now please bear with me here, as this might get a bit confusing, but I promise that when I’m finished, you’ll know the Truth.

What phone carrier offers the iPhone? AT&T.

Who has co-operated in the past with the National Security Agency, allowing the government to have information about their customers? AT&T.

Who’s on Apple’s Board of Directors? Al Gore.

Who do some people claim “invented” the Internet? Al Gore.

What administration is rolling out a National Broadband Plan? The Obama administration.

What political party do Gore and Obama both belong to? The Democratic Party.

Health care reform, also known as “Obamacare,” has recently been signed into law.

Excessive cellphone use has been targeted as a possible cause of brain tumors.

The connection, my friends, is this:

The Democrats can track everyone who uses a cellphone. Sure, we know AT&T is in bed with the Administration, but why should we believe the other telcos are innocent?

If you use an iPhone you can’t remove the battery, which means you can still be tracked, which means that not only will the government know where you are at all times, but when you eventually enter the hospital for treatment of a brain tumor they’ll already have even more information on you because of the mandatory insurance requirements that are part of the health care “reform.”

If you try to avoid being tracked by turning off your cellphone and removing the battery your chances of developing a brain tumor will be reduced, which means you’ll be less of a burden on the healthcare system. This reduction in medical claims could eventually drive the insurance companies out of business, and if that happens then nobody gets any medical care.

Is this the kind of world you want your children to live in – a world where the choices are to use iPhones in order to be able to have access to a doctor, or else have the freedom to move about as you please but run the risk of not being able to get treatment should you fall ill?

Why haven’t Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity and Coulter picked up on this? Am I the only sane voice out there?

I think Dr. Miles Bennell said it best:

“Listen to me! Please listen! If you don’t, if you won’t, if you fail to understand, then the same incredible terror that’s menacing me WILL STRIKE AT YOU! They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next, You’re next…!”

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