Half Life 2 : No more reasons to go outside

Finaly after reinstalling windows, downgrading my graphics drivers and tweeking my card settings i got Half Life 2 running. It's spectacular, i thougth i was really going to have to turn things down but it runs very smooth. I turned my lights off, perfected the position of my 5.1 speakers and emersed myself into a world of extacy. Ah the feeling of really getting into a game, looking over ones sholder, the errie music sending goose bumps up your arm, the racing heartbeat, how i have missed you all. I have not played such a fantastic first person shooter since the origonal half life. And with that note i mush finish this poast cause my trigger finger is getting itchy again.

Is there anything a Physicist cant do.

Ah the simple pleasures of hitting things with a crowbar 

Food Food and more Food

In case you are wondering how we eat here at St.John's colledge here is next weeks menue.

SUNDAY 11/ 28

Choice of Pizza
Pepperoni, Seafood or Vegetarian
***
Black Forest Cake

MONDAY 11/ 29
Roasted Ribeye of Beef with Peppercorn Sauce and Mashed Potato
Or
Roasted Portabello filled with Tomato 'Bruschetta ' and Pine nuts
***
Pear Belgian Chocolate Tart

TUESDAY 11/ 30

Stir Fried Chicken in Black Bean Sauce and Jasmine Rice
Or
Stir Fried Chiba and Cashew in Black Bean Sauce and Jasmine Rice
***
Fresh Fruit Plate

WEDNESDAY 12/ 01

Grilled Pork Chops with Smoky Baked Beans
Or
Grilled Wild Rice and Herb Polenta topped with Sauteed Onions
***
Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

THURSDAY 12/ 02 ('The Great Voucher Battle Chill Out Dinner- for survivors only')

Baked Salmon with Walnut and Cream Cheese Crust
Or
Baked Walnut, Spinach and Chick Pea Blinis
***
Dried Cranberry Bread Pudding with Rum Custard Sauce

Australias Deadly Fungus Spreads to Canada

Australia realy is an interesting place. As far as i can tell it has the worlds most deadlyest Spider, Snake, Jellyfish, Fish, Marsupial, Dog and of course Reptil. Well it appears that even there fungus is pretty dangerous and some unsuspecting tourest (i assume) seems to have brought it to Canada. It used to be that you could walk around the forests of Canada without any fear from local wildlife (like bears are really dangerous). Anyway here is a news report on a friend of mines research.

TROPICAL FUNGUS KILLS 4 ON VANCOUVER ISLAND
National Post
Tue 23 Nov 2004
Page: A11
Byline: Margaret Munro

Tropical fungus Cryptococcus gattii that has taken hold in temperate British
Columbia

The fungus has infected 101 people who live on or have visited eastern
Vancouver Island and killed at least four people, as well as a horse, 11
porpoises that washed ashore and dozens of cats and dogs.

It is 37 times more infectious on the island than it is in Australia, where
it has long been a fixture in the environment, an international research
team reported yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences.

"From a scientific point of view it is extraordinary," said Karen Bartlett, a
co-author of the report who studies environment health at UBC.

"It is so rare to be right on top of an emerging infectious disease."

"I don't think it's going to go away any time soon," said Sarah Kidd, lead
author of the PNAS paper who is now at UBC. She has moved from Australia to
B.C. to study the outbreak of the fungus, which is living in the soil and
under tree bark. It can also survive in seawater, which could help explain
the porpoise deaths."

Greatest Canadian

Allright, so unless youve been living under a rock you have heard of the greatest canadian competition that CBC has been doing. So as of nov 17 here are the standings

1 Tommy Douglas
2 Terry Fox
3 Sir Frederick Banting
4 Pierre Elliott Trudeau
5 Don Cherry
6 Lester B. Pearson
7 David Suzuki
8 Sir John A. Macdonald
9 Wayne Gretzky
10 Alexander Graham Bell

Now i am a fan of Wayne Gretzky, in fact im from his home town (Brantford, Ontario). But im sorry just don't understand why he is in the top 10, ousting people like Margret Atwood and others. Don Cherry, that's even worse. He is an entertaining guy but im sorry he is not one of the greatest canadians to have ever lived, and he certenly should not be beating Sir John A. Macdonald, founder of our nation.

The Britts where the first to do this type of show and they picked Winston Churchill. They had thousands of years of history to choose from. Great people like Isac Newton and william Shakespear. Denmark did a similar show and pickded a rightwinged isolationist who was murderd 2 years ago. It generally seems to be a popularity contest.

Greatest Canadian

The Strange things people sell on ebay

Ive heard of people seeing the virgin Marry in strange places but this is the first time ive seen it sold on ebay. All I can say is she better give that money to charity or she is going straight to whatever hell she belives in. Probably still better than having Bush as president.


Virgin Marry Cheese Sandwitch

Much Anticipation

Well after much work i have finaly got my computer in proper working order again. Running older video drivers and uninstalling service pack 2 seems to have done the trick. As soon as i started using NVIDIA drivers 44.23 every problem went away. Unreal Tournament 2004 ran smoother than ever. I hesitated buying Half Life 2 today because of my graphics problems but now that those are solved i thin a trip to EB tomorow is a must. I was checking out the final requirements for Half Life 2, it can actually run on Direct X 7.0. It is the ideal of game design and deffinatly should serve as an example to other manufacturere. Unlike Doom 3, which seems to require some theoretical supercomputer to play, It is amazingly backwards compatible. it will run on and old computer with a cheep video card and achient drivers but at the same time can give a challendge to the most sophisticated gaming machiens currently on the market. I can understand why it took so long to be released, the game engine must be incredable.

Fu#$ Windows

So Half Life 2 is coming out in a few days and i can be more pissed off. What, you say, it can't be so. Well the problem is not with calflife, its with my computer, presumably the windows XP operating system on it. So for a while now i have been having some graphics troubles with first person shooters and other 3d rendered games. UT 2004, Jediknight outcast, Rainbow Six 3......ect but not games like warcraft 3 or starcraft or generals, some of which are also 3d rendered. Basicly the textrues are repeatedly disapearing and reappearing. walls and objects flash in and out of existance. Sometimes the game freezes for up to 10 seconds and then continues on as normal, still with texture glitches. On rare occations when the game starts working again the floor or the models have all disapeared or turned invisable is a better description.

Stepts to fix problem:

1. I first touhgt it was driver problem but no i have the newest driver.
2. Then i thought windows had a glitch. i had been running for almost a year without a reinstall so i formatted and started from scratch. That did not work either.
3. so i had installed some new ram recently, the nvidia web site sait theat may be the culperit. I downloaded some memory testing software and it found no problems.
4. NVIDIA says i sould test my CPU, havent done that yet but i dont expect that to be the culperate.
5. so now i am left with 3 possabilities. My video card is screwed, NVIDIA does not support the gForce 4 anymore or Windows Service Pack 2 (also installed around the same time as my new ram). You can guess which one i suspect.

If anyone has any ideas, here are my system specs
-AMD Athalon XP 2100+
-512 MB Ram (333 Mhz)
- NVIDIA gForce 4 MX 400
- Soundblaster Live 5.1
- Windows XP with Service pack 2 (not for much longer)

Trews Concert

Wed night Frank, Carl and I went to see the Trews in concert. Definatly a good up and comeing east coast canadian band. We went down to the Comodore. Never been there before, It is a greate venue. Lots of seating and levels, good view from everywhere.

Some Odd Election Statistics Popping Up

Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked
I may have been a little hasty in my previous poast about the intellagence of the american voter. Now i won't comment on the validity of this article but i shows some interesting statistics and raises a couple of very valid points. Read away and make your own opinion. I especially like the part that says

Bev pointed out that regardless of how votes were tabulated (other than hand counts, only done in odd places like small towns in Vermont), the real "counting" is done by computers. Be they Diebold Opti-Scan machines, which read paper ballots filled in by pencil or ink in the voter's hand, or the scanners that read punch cards, or the machines that simply record a touch of the screen, in all cases the final tally is sent to a "central tabulator" machine.

Now correct me if im wrong but im pretty sure Canadian ballots are all hand counted. I dont think i would trust my vote to a machine.

The Incredables is incredable

All right so I went to see The Incredables last night. I have to say that it was an amazing movie. One of the best I have ever seen. It had a great story and it was very funny, especially when capes get cought in airplane engines. I won't go into detail about the movie as you can read revies anywhere and i dont want to give any more away. Needles to say i recomend it to anyone. And to top the night off I stopped to gas up and it was 68 cens/l. I haven't see that price for a long time.

Time to go play some street hocky, the only satisfaction i can get since they put the season on hold. Please com back Hocky, I miss you.

Now I don't know what to beleive in?

It's funny, growing up in canada gives us an interesting perspective on americans. Our two coutries have been very much entwined throughtout history yet to make a generalization, they are very different than us. I have grown up exposed to the steriotypes of americans being self centered, gun totting, right wing lunatics with no concept morality. But, as i have grown and traveled i have met many americans, many who i call friends, and none of them fit the above description. They where all very nice, intellegent, somewhat attractive people who have enriched my life in many ways. And just as I am beginning to think that maby they arnt so different from us canucks they go and do something stupid like re-electing george bush.

By last count there are 58 729 646 stupid americans. This of course dose not include nonvoters so there may be more. Have all the peopel I have meat been a minority of senseble people trapped in a senseless country. Is it really possible that people can't see through Bush's propoganda and view the truth of their country? Are all the other countries in the world who overwhelmingly wanted bush gone wrong? Is it possible that a person can really not give a dam about anbody else but themselves? I no longer know the answers to these questions. All i can say is we all better prepare for 4 more years of hell because now that bush does not have to worry about being re-elected there is no telling what is going to happen next. I predict the removal of a womans right to vote and the return of slavery. What the hell we havent had a good crusade in the last thousand years or so.

To any of my frinds or the other good ameriacans out there that i may have offended with my words i am sorry. I was driven to write this out of a sense of fear and helplessness. Good luck and remember we are here to help.

Nothing to interesting

It was a very rainy day, we had breakfast at 9 and then again at 11. Then i worked on creating my own web page. The parliminary work is poasted, follow the link on this site in my profile. I went to my beaver meeting tonight and we invested some new beavers. six year olds ar not fun to work wiht the day after haloween.

Anyone should be able to post comments now, no membership nessessary