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Sunday, May 27, 2007

Macbook: First Impressions

Yes, I've finally given in to the dark side and bought a Mac. After all, I've experienced all the crashes and troubles a PC can give me (I've been using them since... 1988? or maybe 1989?) and I need a brand new set of problems. That and it looks a lot cooler than my old computer.

So, as I've been using it for roughly a day, I decided to post my first impressions of it. But first, the

Basics

I couldn't afford a MacBook Pro so I went with the basic white MacBook, which is still a very decent computer. With an Intel Dual Core 2.0GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, an 80GB harddrive, a 6X Superdrive (DVD/CD burner, basically), the only thing that's missing is a good video card. Sadly, the only Mac laptops that come with a decent graphics card are the Pros; this one came with an integrated 64MB card. Enough to play basic games, but hardly enough for hardcore gamers. Luckily, I'm not really a hardcore gamer. Except for the lack of a good graphics card and a slightly smaller hard drive, this is generally the same computing power as my old laptop, except the processors are different. Well, that, and it's a Mac.

Booting up

For those who know about Macs, I won't talk about booting up XP using Boot Camp; it's just... booting XP.

One thing I liked is that it booted quickly. Not so much that the splash screen is there for a shorter period of time, but rather that once it does disappear, you can actually start using your computer. On XP, the screen loads but you have to wait for a bunch of other components to load, which is sometimes frustrating if you don't sit through the boot; you think it's all booted up, only to click on the Start button and have it laugh at you and just sit there.

General Usage

I don't have any specific programs I'm going to use on the MacBook, mostly because I don't know much about Mac programs yet and I'll buy some in the future. For now, though, the interface is a bit of a mystery to me. As I was told by the sales rep who sold me the MacBook, it's going to be a period of adaptation. I've grown up on DOS, then Windows 3.1, then Windows 95/98/XP, and now I'm switching to something pretty much entirely different, so my habits and generally all I know about how to operate my computer are thrown out the window.

One thing that bothers me, though I'm quickly learning to take advantage of it, is that programs don't actually quit when you close the window, but rather you have to use the Dock (the Start bar under Windows) to turn them off. While it makes using the internet easier (I have a tendency to close down IE, then open it again, back and forth) it feels like some ressources are going to be sucked down because I sometimes forget to turn the programs off. A minor problem, but a problem nonetheless.

One thing I still don't understand is the lack of a "full screen" button. If you want the window to take up the whole screen, you have to drag the lower right corner to get the desired effect. Again, not a major problem, but still annoying when you're used to using the whole screen as your playground. Add to that the reduced size of the MacBook screen (13 inches) and some applications looks very small indeed.

Overall, as I haven't had the chance to explore the MacBook in its entirety, I can't really say how day-to-day usage is, but it looks like the user-friendliness of most of the product will eventually outweigh the parts I don't like much right now. Hopefully.

Overall

I like the MacBook. Sure, it's new and I haven't used had my own laptop for a while, but I think there's more to it than that. It's a good little machine on the hardware side, and Mac OS X is a good operating system which I'll likely learn to love after I use it for some time. Or I'll throw my MacBook out the window of a moving car on the highway...

I give it eight widgets out of ten.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Artists: Leave My PM Alone (RANT)

Hey everyone,

As my long-time readers know, I love art. Any kind of art... well, most of it, anyway. However, I'm fairly certain a lot of people don't share my love for arts. (The biggest group being called "engineers")

Now, a writer who struck it big by writing a completely idiotic book has decided that if one doesn't like art, one is a very very bad person and (insert typical leftist pseudo-intellectual rant here). When our PM failed to show up to some artsy thing because he had more important things to do, that artist threw a fit. So, to make sure our fearless leader sees the light and stops being such a very very bad person who eats babies, that talentless writer is sending him one book per week. (One can only hope they aren't the writer's own books; it almost turned ME away from literature)

I could understand if the minister responsible for giving out funding for talentless writers was never available or the ministry didn't work or something like that, because, well, it's that minister's job. However, harrassing the Prime Minister because he doesn't have enough of an interest in literature to go to some artsy pat-on-the-back party, is ridiculous.

It pisses me off that leftist pseudo-intellectuals with nothing better to do and government money in their pockets think they're important enough that they can bug the Prime Minister about it and make baseless accusations of him not caring about art. If he really didn't care and hated art, he'd get his minister to cut funding to talentless artists, and probably to artists in general. As it stands, he isn't.

I wonder if engineers should start sending the PM some patents or maybe some engineering books? After all, I didn't see him at the last engineering contest I was at! Oh my god! The PM isn't interested in engineering! The whole of society is going to fall because of that! OH MY GOD! (...LQJR song...*)

Anyway, I'm done ranting. Have a good weekend everyone!

-Fred

*If you aren't from Quebec, or you don't at least know people from Quebec, you probably won't get this. Even then, you might not, but ask around. Either way, you can try googling, or just forget about it.

Those who have nothing better to do...

Might have noticed that my name changed from NCdt(II) Genest to NCdt(III) Genest. It actually should have changed about a week ago, but I forgot. At RMC, one changes "year" the day the graduating class graduates. Therefore, there are no more first years (the "Plebes" become first years only when they get to RMC in August/September) and fourth years can start going insane about how close graduation is. (355 days to grad?)

Thursday, May 24, 2007

This is bloody ridiculous

Wow. Just wow.

Another computer has just died on me. I'm not only the destroyer of figure 11s, I'm also the destroyer of computers. Same problem as far as I know. I honestly don't feel like bothering trying to fix it. I need to call the customer service for the computer that's still under waranty, though, before I leave for the West Coast.

Anyway, I'm switching to Macs ASAP. I've had it with PCs dying on me.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Leave

Well, I can't sleep tonight. Not only are there seemingly endless episodes of Mythbusters (with the delectable Kari Byron), but I'm sick. Must be the whole home-cooked-food deal; my stomach can't digest proper meals.

So, what does a Type A personality RMC student waiting to get on course do on his leave? Why, I don't know! I can tell you what I've been doing on my leave so far, though.

It can be reduced to one lovely little word: chilling. Although it's been pretty warm lately, I think it hit 29C today. In fact, they're forecasting over 30C for the next few days, and pretty humid. Lots of fun... NOT. I don't like the winter, but I don't like it when I feel like I'm melting, either. Like the good apostle of consensus I've always been, I like the happy middle. You know, when you can walk around in shorts yet you're not really sweating yet?

Okay, so I'm not totally idle. I've been reading a lot. I've caught up on most of my magazine-reading, I've gotten a wee bit further in the Gulag Archipelago (the abridge edition), and I'm about a third through Nelson: The Commander. I've also been practicing the pipes, although it's a bit useless as I won't be bringing the actual set of pipes with me to Esquimalt, only my practice chanter. (This is mostly because I got my papers to send stuff over AFTER everything was pretty much packed up and I was too lazy to re-pack and ship it, and now I only have room for uniforms and personal products.) Other than that... I'd say it has been rather quiet. I'm just enjoying the quiet. Or at least, I'm just quiet.

Honestly, even though I sometimes (ok, often) whine about all the stuff we have to do, I've grown used to having stuff to do at random times, for random periods, and generally not being able to sleep in late (I went back to bed after EPT, but that's not the same) and... yeah.

Only a week and a half left before NETPO*.. I can't wait.

*For those not in the know: NETPO means Naval Environment Training Period - Officers

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Celine Dion: Go back to Las Vegas

Between the transit workers strike in Montreal, the fighting in Lebanon, and the rise of the Looney (sounds like a good title for a movie...), the story which seems to be lost captivating to Quebecois is the fact that Celine Dion is being a snob and might not play at the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City.

Apparently, the organizers of the festivities refused to pay some kind of deposit. René Angelil, the untalented but very greedy impressario, said "no money, no Céline." Now everyone is blaming everyone else and Quebec City might have to do without the most annoying export Quebec has ever produced.

Quite honestly, I don't think she belongs. She obviously has forgotten who made her a star, the people of Quebec, and the ungrateful celebrity barely even comes around anymore, and most of her songs are in English. Like a lot of other celebrities who go away, she seems to think she's better than the Quebecois. I say so be it; we have plenty of French-singing, talented, popular artists who want to stay here and aren't going to be snobby little arses about playing for an event that's been 400 years in coming. Some might be a wee bit too political for my taste, but The People love them. Like the St-Jean-Baptiste, The People will just LOVE the show, as long as it's filled with entertainers who have talent and who appreciate The People.

Celine's been in Las Vegas for what, five years? She can stay there for five more, we don't miss her.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Home Sweet Home

Well, I've been home for a few days, now, and I'm already getting bored. There's nothing good on TV (except the Mythbusters marathon yesterday on the Discovery Channel) and even the news (I'm a CNN/BBC/Newsworld/RDI junkie) suck. Most of them seem to be stuck on retarded news and faits divers like car accidents and the like, and those who aren't are just rehashing the situation in Lebanon without bringing in experts; they just ask journalists what they're thinking.

Right now I'm just watching CNN for lack of anything better, and all they're showing is the plume of smoke alledgedly from the refugee camp in Tripoli, and they're talking to a resident of Tripoli. Not a local journalist or a politician or anyone who knows about the situation at large. A resident.

Anyway, it's too early for me to be wasting time online. Back to Nelson: The Commander and the age of sail...

Thursday, May 17, 2007

My first real concert

Well, I got back from the concert at the Graduation Ball less than half an hour ago and I have to say it was a blast. I had a bad case of stage fright, though it wasn't nearly as bad as when I had to appear in a wrestling singlet that was WAY too tight for some play, a few years back, and felt wholly inadequate before walking on.

Anyways, it didn't go too bad. For once my pipes were cooperative--no lost drone reed or impossibly hard chanter reed--and although my lips still can't cope with playing too many tunes in a row, it went fairly well. We played several tunes, including the Scotland the Brave set (Scotland the Brave, Wings, and Rowan Tree), Atholl Highlanders and Bonny Dundee, Highland Laddie and Blackbear, The Orange and the Blue, and... I don't think we played anything else. It was a quick appearance, with the dancers and drummers, and it went pretty well.

Now all I want is to: a) get what's left to pack to be packed; and b) to get drunk. After all, this is the end of my second year of university and I missed the Halfway party. Besides, I'm a sailor, (well, naval officer... but I get called a sailor more often than not) an RMC student AND a general university student, so getting drunk is something that's almost expected of people like me.

As I said a few posts ago, posting might be light from now on. I'm going to borrow the laptop from my dad and should keep posting while I'm on leave, but after June 2nd, I wouldn't expect as many posts as usual. I expect that I'll be travelling to Vancouver at least on a few weekends, and I'm fairly confident that even the hippies in Van have internet cafés; I'll post from there.

For those who are reading this out of interest in the Navy, I promise I'll post pictures of NETPO at the end of the summer at the very least, and I'll try to post a few before that.

Anyway, expect several more posts before the great silence. Until then, keep on rocking in the free world!

"I'm a badass."
(If you're in the RMC pipe band and you're reading this for whatever reason, you should have laughed at that.)

Thank you, random guy!

I was at a restaurant with a friend last night and for some reason the conversation went onto Ghostbusters, and my friend said he didn't remember all the names, so I started listing the "bad guys."

The über-bad guy was Gozer the Gozerian, also known as Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar... yeah, all that stuff the voice over the huge building says.
Dana Barett, played by Sigourney Weaver, was Zuul, the Gatekeeper of Gozer.
That Tully guy, played by Rick Moranis, was the Keymaster of Gozer... but I forgot his name.

Now, this guy, after his group was leaving, came over and said,

My friend, the name of the Keymaster of Gozer was Vinz Clortho.


So thank you, random guy, for reminding me of the important things in life.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

An oversight

I realized I hadn't added Rogue Gunner to my blogroll. He's had me on his for a while and I was sure I had added him to mine. In any case, I'm sorry I didn't put the link up sooner.

He might be a bird gunner, but his blog is still good and, after all, he's one of those men who stood in front of the enemy and did what he had to do for his country.

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Well, graduation is only one day away, and that means I can leave and go home for a bit. Oh, how I love the military! Anyway, I'm leaving either late tomorrow or, more likely, Friday morning. I'm going to borrow my dad's laptop (incidentally it's my old laptop that I gave him when I bought the current one--my dad used to be technology-literate but not anymore) for the pre-course leave so blogging should be more or less constant with my other leave-blogging, but as I said in a previous post, blogging while on course might be light. I'll try and write up mini-updates and maybe post them all at once. After all, the whole purpose of this blog is to show RMC and phase training, and I won't be doing that if I don't post while I'm on phase training, will I?

Other than that, I'm going to be piping on the parade tomorrow, so those of you coming to watch the Grad parade, you should see me, provided it doesn't rain. Just look for the guy in the kilt and the huge hat, over with the band. If it does rain, I'll be back in bed, sleeping, or doing some last-minute packing, whichever.

Anyway, for those who just read the post below... hope you enjoyed it!

ALAAAAAAAAAAAAAARM!!!

I seriously need to find a way to put my overactive imagination to rest... or maybe I just need to stop watching war movies before going to sleep.

That's twice, now, in less than twenty-four hours, that I wake up with something in reality slipping into the dream-world and making me flashback to a movie. It's annoying!

First, yesterday afternoon I took a nap (I hang out with too many Air Force types...). When I woke up, the Sandhurst team was practicing their helicopter rapelling for the Sunset ceremony, and the Griffon (I think?) was flying just across from Yeo Hall--I have a few nice pictures of it. I'd just watched part of Apocalypse Now and... well, you can probably guess the rest, but for those who don't get it, I'll explain. I woke up and blinked, saw the white ceiling (granted, it's about 3 feet above me, but it's still white and plain) and heard the helicopter, and for an instant I had a flashback to that good old opening sequence...

Saigon. Shit... I'm still only in Saigon.


And then I just got out of bed like usual.

The second incident was more startling and, in a way, incredibly cooler.

I set up my alarm for 0650, so I'd get up at 0700 or, at worse, at 0730, as I have a tendency to hit the snooze button a few times too many. Anyway, I hit snooze at 0650 and laid back down (I have to, at the very least, sit up to hit my alarm, as it's at the foot of my bed) and drifted between sleep and wakefulness. At 0659, when my alarm sounded again, I just sat up straight and almost shouted "ALAAAAAAAAAARM!" And I almost jumped out of bed. Almost. And then I realized I was in a bunk bed at RMC and NOT in a certain movie. If you don't know what movie I'm refering to, you're certainly missing a great piece of cinematography.*

Anyway, it was rather funny. I hope it happens to other people and I'm not just going insane. Hey, at least I could blame RMC for making me crazy!

*For those who know what movie I'm refering to, I was watching the Original Uncut Version, which lasts for five hours or so.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

How do women do it?

As I've mentionned a few times already, I'm a piper. That means I wear a kilt, if only when piping.

Anyway, since this morning I've been wondering how women deal with skirts. Seriously. While walking around in a kilt isn't that bad, sitting is atrocious, especially in confined spaces while encumbered by various pieces of kit... like, say, in a schoolbus while carrying a set of bagpipes and the box for a feather bonnet, although it's pretty hard at a dining table, too.

Now, as much as I'd like to watch girls in plaid skirts (...hmmm, schoolgirls...) to figure out how the hell they can sit properly, it might appear a little... inappropriate.

I'll always love plaid skirts... just not on me.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

I hate packing

In case you haven't gotten that much from my posts, I'm about to leave RMC for the summer. Another thing you should've gotten if you've read much of my blog is that I procrastinate intensely. I mean, I'm the king of procrastination.

Anyway, I have to pack. Not only do I have to grab all that crap I need for the course (which isn't all that much, really, just a few uniforms, some footwear, that kinda crap) but I need to bring back my civvie clothes, a bunch of books, magazines, computer games, my electronics, and other assorted crap I've collected this past year. I don't have that much of anything, but if you put everything together, it's a lot.

Packing is really what bugs me about RMC. I love being away all summer, but I have to move most of my crap twice a year, which turns into a lot of moving. We can store some stuff here, but I don't trust the storage space. Cadets are around all summer, and last year my buddy had a bunch of his stuff stolen, and it was obvious the cadets had been creeping through everyone's stuff. Not cool.

So, in addition to cleaning up my room (which I've been needing to do for about a month, now...) I need to actually figure out what I'm bringing back, what I'm throwing away, and what I'm going to try and stuff into my two barrack boxes. I think I'll have to turn to minimalism at some point. After all, if I'm going to try and go for submarines, I better get used to not having much stuff with me at least part of the time. Heck, even on surface ships the space is limited. It's not like I have a lot of GOOD civvie clothes, and most of my uniforms are just extras because I tend to be lazy and not do the wash until I run out of clean clothes... more clothes means I don't have to do the wash as often. I guess I'll just have to stop being lazy.

Anyway, as far as NETPO goes, I doubt I'll have a computer by then, so chances are updates will be few and far between. I'll try and get online through internet cafés or any kind of base... service place thingie where they have computers, but I don't expect to be able to post nearly as often as I do now, and updates might end up being a lot shorter than they are now, as well.

Oh well, back to procras... I mean... packing.

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

DrillFest

Well hello dear readers.

I apologize for any lack of eloquence, I'm sick and exhausted, but I felt I had to give you guys something to chuckle about.

So, RMC is basically closed down for the year. All that remains, sadly, is drill, drill, some more drill, and a wee bit of paperwork. There's still a bit of random outclearance stuff to be done, mostly handing in pieces of uniforms to the tailors so they can put on new shiny badges and all that, getting our claims (that's when they give you money/plane tickets/whatever so you can get to wherever you're supposed to go for the summer), and generally making sure everything's in order. Other than that, RMC has been transformed into a gigantic parade square.

We have EPT (Elemental Physical Training) in the morning, which consists of anything from a run to playing ultimate frisbee, and then the mornings are usually reserved for whatever outclearance is necessary.. the afternoons are for parade practice for those (un)lucky enough to be on Grad parade, and general practice for those of us in the band. At night there's some practicing for the Sunset Ceremony (that happens the night before the Grad parade) and for us pipers, an extra hour of practice, usually to iron out kinks in the tunes. Add to that a few hours of personal practice spread out over the day... Yeah.

I'd like to say good things about DrillFest, but it's really a drag. It gets repetitive and boring and the schedule is such that your time off isn't really off, you just wait for whatever is next. You rush to parade in the morning, then do EPT, then rush off to shower, rush to breakfast (because they have the habit of randomly closing earlier than they're supposed to), then sit around for a few hours, go to lunch and hope it won't be too full so you can get your food quickly, rush to practice, rush to dinner, rush to the other practice, and then you just want to relax so you don't get anything accomplished. I still haven't packed, and honestly I don't know how I'll manage that. I have the kit list and all, but with no real time off, it's hard to get into it. I don't really have a choice, though, so it'll probably get done at some point.

I just wish they'd give us a day off (at least) during the weekend. As it stands, we'll have had basically three weeks with barely any break, by the time we hit Grad parade. I don't want to criticize, but they need to remember the law of diminishing returns. The more we have to over-practice, the worse we get, because we end up figuring out that whether or not we're good, we have to be practicing every day anyway, so some of us end up not bothering to put any effort. We still look good on the actual parade--we're at RMC, looking good for parades is what we do--but it's a bit hollow.

So, for now, my life is basically spread between PT and piping, with a little bit of kafkaesque bureaucracy thrown in for good measure. As much as I like all that stuff, it's starting to be a bit of a grind, and I can't wait to go on leave.

Oh well, only another week and then I can go and sleep on a real bed, eat real food, and relax... Well, at least I'll sleep on a bed where I'm less than 6 feet off the ground, eat what I want to eat, and have nothing to do for a while. I'm sure I'll find a way to get tired of that too, though.

Sorry if that's more than a little bit boring, but that's what's going on at RMC, and the whole reason I made up this blog is to tell people about RMC, so it's your own fault for reading it! HA!

Gimme a beer!

Thursday, May 3, 2007

A haiku -- From Warcraft

Join the Army, they said
See the world, they said
I'd rather be sailing


For the stupid I-can't-think-of-a-good-word among you who only know World of Warcraft--a rather stupid game, really--Warcraft was actually an incredibly awesome real-time strategy game, back in the day when computer games had more to offer than pretty graphics and the ability to piss people off by killing their characters and taking all their items. Or whatever it is that attracts players to World of Warcraft beyond pretty graphics.

Degree Story: You choose

Ok, so you won't literally choose. However, I'm in a bit of a bind when it comes to what courses I'll be taking next year. I need to load up, as I'll be tight to finish enough courses to get my double major--I've abandonned all hopes of a double honours, that was insane--so I'll go for the full 7-course-per-semester load, the biggest load us artsmen can take. The problem is there are 6 full-year courses and 9 one-semester courses I want to take next year, including one mandatory full-year and two one-semester courses that are mandatory. The sucky part is, both one-semester courses are in the fall, so that leaves a hole in my second semester. Pretty much all the courses I'm going to list are courses I'd very much like to take, so any input will be helpful.

French Studies (in no particular order, quick translation of course names for you anglo people)
Full-year courses:
  • FRF320/322 The Civilisation of Francophony (basically, literature from outside the Western world)
  • FRF330/332 War and the military condition
  • FRF344/346 French stylistics (mandatory, but I could take it in fourth year)
  • FRF386/388 Eighteenth-century literature (it would make sense to take this one as I took the 16th-17th century course this year)

History:
Full-year courses:

  • HIF491/492 International Law (Actually, International Crises and Law and Crimes and war criminals: International Penal Law, would be a good choice as I might want to go into law later... I always loved that JAG show.)

One-semester courses:
Fall:

  • HIE387 Russia to 1917 (for some reason, the second part, History of the USSR isn't in the course list...)
  • HIF477 Introduction to terrorism (I'd take it in English, because I know the teacher, but he's heading in Afghanistan next year... might wait until he's back)

Winter:

  • HIF379 The Cold War
  • HIF476 Revolutionary War and Guerilla

Others:

Full-year courses:

  • ENE480/482 Commonwealth literature (first semester covers Africa, Carribean and Canada, the second covers Australia, New Zealand and India ... I could take one semester or the other, or both)

One-semester courses:
Fall:

  • CSE260 Introduction to Computer Concepts (mandatory at some point.. either next fall or the fall after that)
  • PSE301A Organizational Behaviour & Leadership (same as above)
  • ENE469 War Film
  • POF/E488 Laws of Armed Conflict

Winter:

  • ENE444 Twentieth Century Dramatic Literature
  • ENE464 American literature since 1945 (I'd actually prefer this one, and wouldn't take both 444 and 464)

So far, it looks like I'll take the three full-year French courses, and the International Law history course... I'd like to take two more History credits so I'd only need two French and two History courses in fourth year, but that Laws of Armed Conflict course and the English deparment courses sound pretty nice as well. I might end up taking the LoAC course, the two mandatory "others" courses, and fill up my winter semester with some History stuff. I'm a bit scared about taking two "law" courses in the same year, though, considering I don't know that much about it. As I'll also have a few mandatory courses in fourth year, I can't just put everything off to then. Besides, I don't really want a huge year in fourth year; I'd like to enjoy the end of my College experience.

Help, anyone?

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Celebrating May Day Once Again

Fake News Network (FNN) - Kingston, Soviet Canuckistan

Light Armoured Vehicles (LAV), G-wagons and assorted pieces of artillery rolled down Princess Street in Kingston this morning in celebration of the International Workers' Day.

The Canadian General Secretary of the Party, Jean Poutine, remarked, "this is the best parade we've had in recent memory. All that's missing is some good old-fashionned head-bashing. And gulags; we really need gulags."

Thousands of soldiers marched to be reviewed by the Secretary, while smaller celebrations took place in other cities across Soviet Canuckistan. A small group of counter-revolutionaries, led by well-known troublemaker Emmanuel Goldstein, protested but were quickly beaten back by the RCMP, the Revolutionary Canuckistan Military Police.

Further celebrations are planned for the evening, including what has been dubbed "the biggest show of fireworks since the Chinese invented powder." Police and military forces are on high alert for further actions from Goldstein's group, the so-called Counter-Revolutionary Agency for Peace, and other enemies of Soviet Canuckistan.

FNN wishes all its readers a very revolutionary May Day.

-----

The above was a ficticious text and a sad attempt at humour, please treat it as such.