Looks like Ramadan starts a day earlier in Tokyo than in Pakistan or in most of Canada.

Ramadan Mubarak to all!

So it turns out that the cowardly police in Montreal shot 3 people and killed a 19 year old - a Latino it seems.

I remember a few years ago that I heard a story about a friend's friend. Basically, he got picked up by the cops and had the crap kicked out of him. When they finished with him, they dumped him in an alley and drove off. The Brossard police tried to get him to name names so they could do something, but he was too shaken up (read: scared) to do anything about it.

But don't worry; they are "heroes".

This is one of the weird things about Japan. Every summer they have a baseball tournament with all the teams in the country. It is actually broadcast on TV, and it is shockingly watchable. Yeah, I see errors and weird plays all the time but there is so much legitimate passion. Fellow schoolmates form cheering squads and follow their teams to the final, and sing team anthems in the stands. It is something I've never seen. When I was a grade school student, I didn't really pay attention to sports; and it wasn't as if anyone cared.

I understand that a sports-oriented culture exists in the US and it isn't a great thing. At the same time, I have to admit that I really enjoy actual amateur sport. The second guessing and the money factor really take a bite out of any enjoyment I get out of pro sport - not to mention that there is very little that is "home" about the home team. What is a player named "Saku Koivu" doing as a "Montreal" Canadien. (Great hockey player - but not Quebecois or even Canadian!!!)

Found this while cleaning my old computer (while looking for work files). Put it up on Youtube, enjoy!

I'm not 169% sure but I think this is the original that kicked off the fad.

Basically, this is the song about someone trying to take down Airman in Megaman 2 - and failing miserably, repeatedly. It goes onto him looking for hints on the Internet, where he is told to steal Woodman's leaf shield and try again. Finding himself unable to beat Woodman, he decides to, instead, collect E-cans until the very end and try to win. For anyone who hasn't played Megaman 2, keep in mind that Airman and Woodman are two of the easiest bosses in the game.

The song is F***ing catchy.

There are quite a few other creations that pick up on this meme - Dragonball Z one:

Japanese "Erogames"

God Gears:

Gundam Seed:

This meme rules.

-edit-

This was the original airman one - and it makes sense. He was trying to beat heatman, needed that jet sled (Item #2) which he gets from Airman. I remember having the same problem!!

I had the most irritating bug in PHP - or so I thought. I simply was unable to connect to the database. I spent the entire weekend recoding and simplifying until I gave up and made a simple connect statement. I kept getting the error message "Can't connect to MySQL server on (Remote IP) (13)".

(The "13" is really confusing and led me down the wrong path. It is actually the result of error code 2003.)

Anyway to save you time, log into your Centos/SE Linux server and type in:

/usr/sbin/setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect=1

This is basically a setting in SELinux that enables remote connections and is off by default. (Remind me to flay the guy who administers the network). Thanks to the OSCommerce user "ericp502" who posted the solution.

In the Tokyo Mosque, the Turkish Imam gave a fairly good sermon in English, Japanese and Arabic. They also had papers of it available so people who had a hard time listening could read along and understand.

In Brossard, 2/3 of the Imams in the rotation are Pakistanis who are incapable of giving a coherent talk in English or Arabic.

Oh, I forgot, I'm not supposed to say that. Perish the thought.

The only reason they rioted after the first round was because they knew that it was as close as Montreal would never get to the Stanley Cup finals.

Samir says:

I was always a Flyers fan deep down

To imagine I doubted it! Montreal is a town of winners!

I saw this great post at Craigslist that sums it up.

(I hope) the Habs fail this postseason. I want the habs to fail so badly, so miserably, so excruciatingly close. I'm talking overtime, Game 7, Stanley Cup Final, I want us to lose. I'm ashamed to be a Montrealer tonight. Burning 4 police cruisers, and so much other sick behaviour! Mayhem on the streets, drunk assholes, shit disturbers, troublemakers, cockroaches. You fuckos! We only just won one round. And I don't want to hear this shit how it's a few isolated incidents and fans or opportunists, fuck you, this doesn't happen everywhere does it? Especially after only one round you stupid fucks.

-edit-

An IM convo I had that sums it up.

Jawaad said:

http://www.ordisante.com/2008/04/22/montreal-is-a-winner.html

Kal China says:

wow

Kal China says:

the Habs lost?

Jawaad says:

no

Jawaad says:

they won

Kal China says:

..........

Kal China says:

then why?

Jawaad says:

Kal, do you remember how nice you felt when we left Montreal and had internet access that worked?

Jawaad says:

The people who did this are the people who fix your internet connection

What ever happened to the sports media at the Gazette? The Canadiens get obliterated 5-1 by the worst team in the playoffs, and I read nothing but rational analysis of the massacre. Where is the irrational fist waving and bleating? Where are the demands that the NHL revamp its rules to let the Canadiens trade its entire team during the playoffs? How could such disgustingly measured, prudent and responsible stories make it to a Montreal newspaper??

In the future, please use headlines such as "Price Chopper" or "The Price is Wrong" and make sure that the story is accordingly alarmist. If this coddling goes on, players might actually like playing in Montreal and Jacques Lemaire might one day be in the coach's seat - disaster!!

Jawaad Mahmood

Tokyo, Japan

Cybershark is a character who never appeared in the TV series - although you wouldn't know it from his tech spec. He actually sounds exactly the same as Depth Charge ended up. This exact same mold was reused in Transformers: Robots in Disguise as the character "Sky-Byte" (Japanese name: Gelshark) - the reuse had a much better colour scheme, with all of the details actually having colours attached to them. That is not a criticism of Cybershark though - he really was one of the most attractive colour schemes released in the Beast Wars era.

Two classic Transformers characters in a remarkably friendly mood (for them anyway)

Until Hasbro settled on the name "Nemesis Prime", the name "Scourge" was used for Black and Teal repaints of Optimus Prime. Prior to that, Scourge was a character from the original Transformers TV show - his role was that of the lackey of the planet-sized Transformer, Unicron (and later, during the third season of the original series, the lackey of Galvatron).

Squeezed between those two was Transmetal 2 Scourge. A mix of colours and with a unique leg design (somewhat similar to the one used in Beast Machines Cheetor), Scourge is unique in that he is a Transformer I did not want, did not buy, and have anyway. (My brother and sister gave it as a gag gift because I always complained about how ugly it was).

I admit, I am a bit distressed with what pronoun to use for transformers. I hesitate to use "He" and "His", but "It" sounds weird also (considering that they are considered to have a sex within the fiction). :-/

Starscream is unique in that he is the only character to have had a speaking role in every Transformers series done in America, even Beast Wars (in which he possessed the body of Waspinator). He even had a minor role in the first TF Movie, when he booted Megatron off Astrotrain (and was subsequently destroyed by Galvatron). The episode "Starscream's Ghost" was a favourite of mine when I was about 6 or 7 years old.

This toy was considered almost revolutionary when released. Smokescreen is a 1:24 scale Subaru Impreza WRX. He was the first licensed Transformer released, probably ever (not counting what happened with a Dodge Viper that was licensed in TF: RID). The toy is incredibly detailed and quite pose-able, and was first shown to much fanfare at a comic convention in California (can't remember quite where). In retrospect, his vehicle and robot mode look fantastic, but he is fussy and it is very easy to have problems (see: the popped hood which WON'T STAY IN PLACE)

Awww! Beast Wars Megatron is a Sk8tr Boi!!

Beast Wars Megatron is such a ham. He transforms from a sweet purple dinosaur to a phallic sk8tr boi.

Blastcharge's vehicle mode is gigantic for a deluxe - and is one of the nicest vehicle modes released in Beast Machines. He is a perfect partner for Tankorr.

His 4 wheel mode isn't too bad for that purpose either.

This robot mode is one of the ugliest made in modern Transformers history. Somehow he is so ugly that he's beautiful.

Not an official mode, but I used to call this "Turret Mode" when I bought him. (Back in college, I used to work 8 hours to get 15 bucks to buy crap like this - true story).

When he was first seen, a lot of people were excited by Scavenger. He had an amazing facial sculpt and oozed with personality. While the toy wasn't as great as people expected (the lower half of the toy is utterly immobile), it is still quite fun to fool around with. Sadly it appears that the rubber threads on my Scavenger are broken. Serves me right for buying him I guess. I put up robot mode pics of his previously, here.

The Vehicons were an exercise in creating "Living Machines" for the Beast Machines series. Although I hated the designs at the time, I've grown to appreciate them with time.