The Squirrel Relocation and Witness Protection Program

June 25th, 2009 Thomasso

The Squirrel Relocation and Witness Protection program was started to help protect squirrel victims and the relocation criminal squirrels from the community and send them to remote areas for rehabilitation.

In this particular case, Mr. Fur Face, was apprehended for grand larceny of a free-standing bird feeder that is privately owned and run in the Fort Langley area. Mr. Face was relocated to a unknown secret location about 15 kilometres outside of town today just after his capture. He was only in custody for less than one hour after the crime took place, and witnesses say he acted without remorse.

Posted in General, Video | 2 Comments »

Did Everyone Go Away for the Weekend?

May 16th, 2009 Thomasso

I was getting a little bored sitting around reading so I decided to phone a couple of friends to see what they were all up to, but all of them had gone out of town for the long weekend. This is bad. I feel jealous. The price I pay for my higher education—dealing with the homework issues–the shackles of my weekends.

Anyway, I took a long walk by the river this evening. I brought my trusty little Kodak camera with me so I could attempt to take a whole pile of sunset shots, but the walk was cut short because the pesky little blood-sucker flies are out. I have bites all up and down my arms and legs. Fortunately, I brought my jacket just as a precautionary measure because it looked like it could start to rain, but instead I put it on when it was baking hot out. I wasn’t the only one taking a walk with long sleeves on while the sun was out. I envy those who earlier on in the day could walk barefoot along the sand.

On my way back during my little walk I took this shot, below, that shows Billy Brown Road, looking West from off of Glover Road. The white structure in the middle is the seniors home for the “40s and up.” The green building on the right, if you notice, is actually sitting over on where the pavement and  sidewalk should be. I guess that will get taken down to make the road its rightful width very soon. That sand pile is where there might be some stores, as I heard that it was set for commercial usage. Maybe they’ll put in a big-box store! That would be interesting for Fort Langley.

It looks like summer could be here after all, for the West Coast at least. I heard on the news that Manitoba got snow today? I feel so sorry for those people—OK I don’t because it could have been us getting the white stuff here the way the weather has been so far this year. Now our worst nightmare is going to be what the spring run-off is going to be like. Perhaps a super flood will take place here in the Fraser valley for our June/July flood period? I hate flood warnings.

Great! A mosquito snuck inside my place. I’ll never sleep with that buzzing around biting me all night. Where’s the sticky-tape!

Posted in Bitching about weather, General, Photographs, Video, flood | Comments Off

Another Winter’s day of Snow

January 5th, 2009 Thomasso

Last night as I was driving home from a friends place, the visibility from the snow was so bad that I almost had to drive at something less than 30 Km/h. What was forecast on the radio as a night of rain turned into a sudden freakish snowfall. Boy did it snow.

Later that night I heard a crackling noise outside my front door. It was a tree that leaned onto the power lines. The more it snowed, the frequency of sparking from the tree increased to the point that the fire department was called in . When I walked around the driveway I noticed that my next-door neighbour was outside too, also looking at the tree that was getting electrocuted. We had to duck falling branched too!

She pointed to another utility power pole where the trees forced it to lean over into the yard across the street from me. Every power line was dropping and at the other end of the street I could see another tree with its branched sparking away as it leaned on the wires.

Oddly our power never went completely out except for the odd flicker and two second dimming. I think we were lucky.

The real fun was this morning when everyone was heading off for their work. I had the day off. From 6:00am till noon the sounds of spinning tires was heard. One poor fellow with a very small car with summers tires almost damaged his engine as he kept on spinning his tires. When he gave up his car was making popping sounds as the engine kept back-firing when idling. I think for a lot of people this was a “Snow Day.”

With my municipal government stead fast on not doing snow removal for residences, I wonder what the true costs are for everything barely moving because of it. Many companies could not work today because of the conditions of the roads. My friend’s garbage has not being picked up in two weeks now because the garbage trucks are not out in his area. He hired a bobcat (a small tractor/scooper)to remove and clear snow in his cul-de-sac, but never touched the street. Him and his neighbours all pitched in and rented the bobcat to take care of their driveways. He told me that if we truly had a right-wing government that we would all be responsible for clearing our own streets. I laughed—I think we are already there?

Posted in Bitching about weather, Diatribe, General, Social economics, Video | 2 Comments »

Talk’n About Space Rocks

December 27th, 2008 Thomasso

When I was up to my neck with term papers and exams there was a huge meteorite that travelled above Alberta and Saskatchewan that was seen by thousands of people last month, but I was too busy to catch all of the news on it.  So I’m sort of catching up on what I’ve missed. I’m kind of a back yard astronomer, so stories like this really catch me attention.

Seeing meteorites are rare events. We all have seen little ones that streak across the sky, but not too many have seen ones that have hit the earth. What is even more spectacular are the numerous video cameras that caught the fire-ball lighting up the night sky on November 20, 2008. When I watched the videos on You-Tube, and the quality does it no justice, I was amazed at just how bright that object was when it burnt up in the atmosphere. And from what I have read people did managed to find bits and pieces of it.

A bright fireball lit up the sky over parts of Canada and was probably a meteor which may have hit the ground in central Alberta. Reports from all over western Canada said the bright flashes occurred at 5:30 pm MST on Nov. 20. The bolide split the evening sky and fragmented during a series of booming explosions. Source: Universe Today,  November 21, 2008.

For the people who were really close to the event they heard the explosion that it made when it entered the atmosphere. That would have being very cool to have witnessed. I’m sure there were people who thought it was American or Russian space junk falling out of orbit and landing in our back yard.

I caught a little bit of it on the news last week when CBC said that experts did manage to find small chucks of the meteorite from November 20, but I have yet to find anything on the net. I just started my search today, so hopefully very soon I can dig up some dirt on what the scientist think it was, or how big? I would like to know.  So Far from CBC I found this story that had some intersting facts about how people perceived what they saw.

ADDED December 27, 2008: Thanks to Dean for giving me the right TV station for the location and search details of that meteorite site.  Please see this link for photos, information and video of what has being found up until then at CTV Edmonton, AB web site.

The group, organized by the University of Calgary, has recovered more than 100 meteorites from the site near Lloydminster, on the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and says many more are still out there. Source: CFRN, Alberta.

I think that would be cool to find a 4 billion year old rock that up until November 20th, 2008 was floating out in space.

Posted in Astronomy, General, Video | 1 Comment »

When the Shoe Flies & Shopping Regrets

December 16th, 2008 Thomasso

First the funnies. I just about fell off of my chair when I saw the news footage of George Bush’s near miss with an irate Iraqis who threw both of  his shoe at him while he spoke speaking at a news conference. Unbelievable that it happened, and doubly unbelievable that George could move like that. The Shoe jokes just started to fly at work when we talked about that. CBC, the Current had in there promo for today:

It’s Tuesday December 16th.

U.S. President George Bush narrowly dodged a pair of shoes thrown at him by an irate reporter at a press conference in Iraq

Currently … Boy, the president is lucky this didn’t happen in Iran where he would have been carpet bombed.

This is the Current.

See for yourself if you have not seen it on the television:

I made the mistake of going shopping this evening. I should not have gone-period. It was a zoo down town. The first store I went to to do some food shopping, I literally spent more time in the line-up than I did walking around shopping. The couple at the front of the line paid with gift cards. The poor cashier spent so much time dealing with them that it took well over ten minutes to get on their way.

I think gift cards are a great idea if you are not sure what to give someone for a gift for whatever occasion you are celebrating during the holidays, but they are a hassle to cash. And if you have ten of them, think about how much time it will take to go through each one after all of your stuff has been run through. The poor couple were not happy at the trouble is caused. Which brings me to the rest of the people standing in the line-up…

OK, people, listen up: check your balance before you go out on your shopping spree. It’s really simple to do. Know how much you have on your plastic, or credit, depending on how far in debt you are because we the rest of the world don not have time to waste while you get the cashier to sort out what you can afford. Plus, we will stare at you, and think, “oh that poor person, overdrawn and in debt… maybe you are going through a really bad divorce and your spouse just cleaned out your bank account.” Check your BALANCE, for crying loud, before you go shopping.

Anyway, I made it home in one piece. I did not get all the stuff I wanted because I sort of gave up and headed home once I realized that even though it was 10:00pm, the crowds were not letting off. Weird, on a Tuesday night? People are still buying.

Posted in Diatribe, General, Social Justice, Video | Comments Off

Video Experiment with VIMEO

December 7th, 2008 Thomasso

I was playing around with my video settings here on the Blog because this is the third time in a month that the Creator of the plug-in has fixed bugs in it. I stuck with Viper’s Video Quick Tags because it seems to have the best interactive control panel out of all the WordPress plug-ins I have tried.

While I was re-setting my tweaks for my Blog, I started viewing some of the other video formats that I never bothered to look at before and came across VIMEO. I never really paid that much attention to VIMEO before, so I went over to at the website and then started poking around. I came across this:

I thought the animation was interesting; I’m thinking that it could be made by an armature, even the music–but sounds good. It is the X-mass story, and the song is in Spanish, I believe. Oh, and one of the wise men looks like Santa in this video! The screen credits said that this was in HD for TV, though the audio was suffering from the bandwidth, and it was is stereo. I really like this type of animation, and I have made a few myself when I had lots and and lots and lots of time to render them. Did I say lots of time to render them right–yeah, even with an Intel Quad-Core it’s slow going?

So enjoy–that’s about as far as I’m going with decorating the Blog this year for the holidays–unless I get really board and I have some time to spend getting creative.

Posted in Blog Problems, Blog and Web Tech, General, Video | Comments Off

Talking About BC Political History

November 30th, 2008 Thomasso

I was talking to a friend of mind from the University Campus at Kwantlen in Surrey, BC, when we started talking about some of the best/funniest/outstanding politicians that served in the British Colombian Legislature and Judy Tybji (aka Judi Tyabji Wilson) and Gordon Wilson came up. It was so long ago now that I had almost forgotten about her and some of the headline she made during her career in politics. This was in a time when BC had a real right-wing party and Conservatism was a grassroots idea that was sweeping the province. Judy was a Liberal at the time.

I should point out too that my friend, (and I promised that I would not print Dave’s name here) is a political science/ journalist major, doing a double degree program–because he is nuts. We like to talk about the political history of BC and Canada–which is why I like to write about it here on the blog. I am by no means politically neutral here.

Anyway, back to talking about Judy Tybji…. She had a television show that ran for about one year called The Westerly (2001-2002) that was a current affairs programs about British Columbia. What was so great about this program was that she tore through every policy of the government at the time. She attacked the cutbacks, free-trade, poverty, welfare, and many many more issues–she was the thorn in the side of every politician. I heard rumours that her TV show was Yanked because of her highly opinionated stance on political views–I guess the government doesn’t like that for some strange reason?

So with the power of the Intranet, and the huge cash of information out there, I was able to find a Youtube clip that had some highlights of her short television career. Like I said, she was the thorn in every politician side.

Sadly, I think we need another Judy Tybji to mix the pot today. Politics is loosing its appeal, just look at the polls. Many people that I know personally are so dis-attached to politics that they will not vote, and I say that we need someone to jump in there and put some fire under the feed of these guys in office to revive the interest of it. Today, BC politics is boring…. Well, they are not helping to the appeal of attracting new blood into their ranks.

Posted in General, Video | Comments Off

Magibon Girl: Born of Japanese Male Fantasies

November 26th, 2008 Thomasso

This was one of the most creepiest things I have come across all week, and I have seen some really weird stuff in the last couple of days. I got this from the Tokyo Mango Web Site that is link in my Blog-Roll on the right. Apparently she is from Florida, and when you see her in the interview in Japan she doesn’t even look Japanese. She had me fooled in this video of her earlier webcam postings. [Added] Okay, I knew this was going to come up–she is 22 years old.

Speaking of the video: it is creepy. All she does is stare into the webcam and does these little poses and blinks her big dark eyes at you. I guess Japanese men really love those eyes because she was asked to fly over to Japan and do some interviews. She seems to be a huge hit over there.

YouTube had certainly made a huge impact in some circles. But I did some really quick searches on the web and only had to look into the first five links to figure out why this girl, Magidon, is so special–it is her look. She looks like the typical Manga Girl: just Google it!

What is interesting is that some of the YouTube videos have hits counts that are through the roof–I think this one was put up into the top Five Youtube picks for a while.

Posted in General, Video | Comments Off

I love Coffee

November 15th, 2008 Thomasso

Of all my vices, coffee is my last true addiction. My need for caffeine, especially first thing in the morning, is only surpassed by my needs for food and water and sleep. I think my fondness for the black drink is part habit and part craving. I am the one pot per day user.

A couple of weeks I decided that I would cut back and eventually cut out my liquid fix altogether. So far I am on track having reduced my consumption down to a tiny fraction of my normal usage, which is now one cup per day. And so far the side effects and coffee cravings have not registered throughout my day. It could also be to early to start boasting too as I had just gotten over a two week flu, I am still swimming through piles of homework and the season rush is starting to take hold at my work. It is hard to define what is a “normal” day is so two weeks is too early to tell.

I have also decided to keep track of my usage on a spreadsheet. I want to graph out my progress over a long period of time just to see how my mind, body and social aspects towards coffee evolve with my new lifestyle change. I have also decided to include data such as general feeling, energy levels and overall stress, along with consumption, marking times, places and durations. So, for each day I will include in each column a score (a one to ten rating) on each data point. For each entry I have eight measurements that I will chart for the next six months. I am hoping that I will have completely weaned myself off from the black sludge by then and my smile will be a stained free one after that.

So, does anyone have any advice on quitting this habit? Am I on the right path? Have I gone overboard with the scientific approach? Let me know if you are coffee drinker also, or you choose the tea beverage over coffee and will never give it up?

A little Coffee humor from the TV Show Scrubs.

Posted in General, Photographs, Video | 2 Comments »

Restorative Justice Perspective: Alana, CRIM3249

September 18th, 2008 Thomasso

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my instructor from last semester was famous. OK, she is not Hollyweird famous, but she is on You Tube–that’s got to count for something, eh? Anyway, Alana Abramson was the very first person who planted the seeds in me for taking a proactive journey into the the world of restorative justice, and because of her I actually started practicing through volunteer programs in Corrections Canada doing restorative justice programs. She was going into prisons to work with the inmates as they start their reintegration back into the community, and I thought that was so cool.

In a way Alana is somewhat of a pioneer in British Columbia because of her academic profession and passion for helping people through these restorative Justice programs. She started some of the first full time programs that deal with offenders who are in the halfway-house programs.

I first met her back in 2003-4 through some workshops that she was teaching called Alternatives to Violence Programs (AVP), kind of an variant of restorative justice that works specifically with just the inmate population upon being released. I attended and sat in some of her sessions that she worked on in the Ferndale Correctional facility in Mission, British Columbia, and saw first hand what she was doing. So it had been four years since I last seen her.

At a last minute cancellation at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, then it was just a college, Alana took over for one of the profs who took sick, so I had her as instructor for my Class on Young Offenders last term. I think she blew a lot of students away when she walked into the classroom. First, she looks very young. Second, she is very energetic and passionate about restorative justice. Finally, she knows her stuff–she is an M.A. with honours from S.F.U. (Simon Fraser University).

Through Alana’s connections and friends we got to visit the Youth Correctional Facility in Burnaby, British Columbia, the old Welland prison for Women, and she brought many guest speakers into the classroom who gave us first hand lecturers on some of the aspects of youth crime and insights into those worlds. So here she is giving a lecture on Restorative Justice:

What do you think about Restorative Justice after hearing Alana’s video clip?

Posted in Criminal Law, Criminology, General, Social Justice, University classes, Video | Comments Off