Video – britlog

Zorbing in New Zealand

jason — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 04:51:24 +0000

Sylvia and I did a tandem Zorb run this afternoon. Here’s the video from inside the Zorb:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JNkw9BcsFs]

Thank you Dan and Rachael! (Our Xmas present )

My New Eyes – Part One

jason — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:27:42 +0000

Earlier this year I was diagnosed with epithelial keratitis, which resulted in severe photophobia one morning in June. I learned that 17 years of soft contact lens wear had eventually taken its toll on my eye and, while they would likely recover, it would be difficult for me to wear soft contact lenses regularly for a long time. My high-myopia prescription (-10 & -9) is too strong for LASIK to be totally reliable and there’s no way I was wearing glasses for the next few years (I have no peripheral vision and I’m likely to get hit by a bus).

So, today I am going for my first of my two eye surgeries (like most people, I have two eyes, and sadly, they don’t do both at once). I will be getting an Artiflex Intraocular lens (IOL) implanted into the anterior chamber of my eye. Something like this:

Basically a bit of perspex inside my eye. I can’t believe they can actually do these things and, apparently it’s quite routine. My doctor is Dr. Chad Rostron, who’s be doing surgery similar to this for many years.

I know, you’re so excited you can hardly contain yourself, so here it is … video of similar procedure to what I’m getting today:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP1jaxcA-aI]

Wish me luck!!

Happy 7th Birthday MIPS!

jason — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:16:44 +0000

Today, January 23rd, is MIPS‘ birthday. He was born around 5PM (EST) on January 23rd, 2001, on the floor of my condo in Toronto. True to his name even today, MIPS is still proficient in Millions of Irritations Per Second with his incessant whining to go outside and play. Also celebrating birthdays this day are MIPS’ brother Placenta Head and his sisters Princess Noki and Rogue. Sadly his brother Cletus never made it as he was stillborn, but that’s fine–we never liked him anyway.

I’ve put together the following video of MIPS’ early years (including a few shots of his mom Tinrib and his siblings). The soundtrack features the classic song “My Toque’s Too Tight” from Drool Puddy’s HundredFootKeepOff (most surprising part – somebody is actually selling a copy of my highschool band’s album after 13 years).

Enjoy:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpavRTEPIZs]

Please use the comments section to suggest what activities and/or food MIPS should indulge in to celebrate his big 7th.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIPS!

Make Faire: Meet the Makers

jason — Sun, 20 May 2007 03:35:57 +0000

I’ve been in the San Francisco Bay Area (aka “Silicon Valley”) this weekend and have been trying to keep myself busy. I used to live in the area (during an internship at a tech company in Sunnyvale) and I have some friends who still live here. My friend Amber was kind enough to suggest a few interesting things happening this weekend and I decided to attend the Maker Faire. It turned out to be very entertaining! Unfortunately I didn’t bring my proper camera so you’re going to have to live with the pictures from my mobile phone or pictures I can find elsewhere online.

The event is put on by Make: Magazine, which is a quarterly magazine for people who like to make things (usually technology related). It a very entertaining magazine but I’m not enough of a “Maker” to justfy the exorbinant cover price (New Scientist is the only magazine I subscribe to FWIW). I acutally saw Mark Frauenfelder, editor-in-chief of Make: Magazine while I was there:

While not exactly what I would consider a celebrity encounter, he is the only person I’ve ever seen in person who has appeared on the Colbert Report.

But I digress. There was all sorts of cool things there including GIANT TELSA COILS there! YEAH:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ2oLQ2ZEnc]

This guy was lighting a fluorescent bulb with his Tesla coil:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoHxLyDJ81U]

Posted about were warnings like this one:

They had electric vehicals:

Antiquated technology:

People who made all kinds of wacky stuff, including giant robots:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE0hW77XEpQ]

And, of course, the truly insane, like this guy who was knitting whist playing the drums:

And the “Redneck Pool Heater“:

The event was much bigger than I expected and I never did end up meeting up with Amber while I was there. The SF Bay Area is one of the only places that can support this kind of insanity at this level. Between stuff like this and the beautiful weather it makes me almost miss living here!

Never buy a Microsoft phone

jason — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 09:45:25 +0000

I know this should be obvious, and I should have known better, but (suprise!) my Microsoft-powered “smart” phone that work bought me is a piece of trash. I’ve had this thing since November and it’s been nothing but trouble. The phone needs to be rebooted every day or the phone will stop rining and alarms and notifications will stop going off, making the phone basically useless. And now, whenever I reboot, I get this for about 10 minutes:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmIrlmBmN4E]

NEVER buy a Windows Mobile phone if you can avoid it. I’m just hoping that I can convince my work to get rid of this piece of trash and get me a BlackBerry again. Palm should be ashamed of themselves for going over to Windows.

Primark Madness! – J.Coyle, this post’s for you!

sylvia — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 20:18:56 +0000

So Primark opened on Oxford Stree last weekend. I had meant to go for the Thursday 10am opening, but completely forgot. I’m not sure if it was as insane the first day, but this is what happened while we were away for Easter!!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFPr5F_p5so]

Isn’t that crazy!!?! I like the cheap and chic-ness of Primark, but it’s not worth causing bodily harm! And Primark already exits in London!

Seriously… is this not insane?! What crazy backwards city do I live in?!