The Avengers

I went to see The Avengers today.  I stuck with regular old 2D instead of watching it in 3D.  I'm not a big fan of movies in 3D -- truthfully, if local cinemas only offered The Avengers in 3D I would have waited to watch it on BD.

When I first heard they were producing The Avengers I wasn't too keen on the idea.  Why?  Because it's been my experience that as the number of heroes/protagonists and villains increase the quality of the film decreases.  See Spiderman 3, Iron Man 2, Batman Returns....  I have no idea why sequels feel compelled to increase the number of villains.

Anywhoo, I was relieved to find The Avengers maintained a pretty good balance between all the characters.  There was no point in the film where I was thinking, "why are they wasting so much screen time on this character?"

I've only watched Iron Man and Iron Man 2, none of the Hulk movies, Captain America, or Thor, but several times I found myself thinking, instead, "huh, I wouldn't mind learning more about this character."  I'm not saying I'm going to rush out to rent them (problematic ever since Blockbuster went kaput), but I'm definitely more open to the idea of doing so.

I give The Avengers 4 out of 5 stars.  This is a film I'm definitely purchasing on BD.

Aside.  The trailer for the new Spiderman film actually looked interesting.  At least, it made me question my decision to not see it in the cinema.

Tim Hortons Roll up the Rim to Win

The official odds for this year's Tim Hortons Roll Up The Rim contest was one in six.  Despite a slow start, where I was 0 for 9, by the end it worked out fairly close, at 4 out of 25.  Four wins that included two free doughnuts, one free coffee, and a Tim's card.

Speaking of the Tim's card, it was kind of a hassle.  First of all, naively I thought that I could go down to any Tim Hortons location and claim it immediately since, you know, they offer Tim's cards everywhere and $100 must be a mere drop in the bucket given how busy they always are.

It wasn't quite that easy.  I needed to fill out a claim form (which the Tim Hortons location provided me), mail it to some P.O. Box, and wait for up to 6-8 weeks.  Unfortunately, it didn't even turn out to be that easy.  Six or so weeks later I received a letter stating they had received my claim and requesting I send in another prize claim form. 

Why is that?  Why, it's because the prize claim form provided to me by the Tim Hortons location turned out to be for the 2011 contest, not 2012.  I don't even know why that Tim Hortons location still had year old claim forms laying around.  I wonder how many other unsuspecting prize claimants they foisted those on.

Anywhoo, this time I downloaded the 2012 prize claim form and mailed that off.  Another 6-8 weeks later I finally received the Tim's card.   I guess I'm just relieved they didn't disqualify my claim completely, but even more importantly, despite being out of pocket $20 for sending two registered letters, I still came out ahead by $80.

Star Trek Humour

Earlier this week I read a pretty funny Star Trek joke.  I don't know how long it's been around, but it was the first time I'd heard it.  It was in an article in Car & Driver or Motortrend, can't remember which.  It went something like this:

"[...] as sure as Captain Kirk has three ears, the left ear, the right ear, and the final front ear."

Lazy Language

I decided to take the time to describe two more examples of what I consider to be very lazy and misguided use of language. A couple years ago I uploaded a post of a similar vein regarding a cbc.ca story I'd read. This time around, the examples happen to relate to NHL and NHL playoff reporting/commentary.

In what I can only attribute to a misguided and inane attempt to be (tragically) "hip", I've noticed several NHL commentators in both television and radio refer to the city of Vancouver as "Van", as in "the Kings next take on the Canucks in Van". Is it simply a matter of too many syllables, is three too much? Do they then refer to Winnipeg as "Win", Buffalo as "Buff", Montreal as "Mon", Ottawa as "Ott", Toronto as "Tor", Washington DC as "Wash", Winnipeg as "Win", Edmonton as "Ed", Anaheim as "An", and Los Angeles as "Los"? If that's the case then I wonder how they would bastardize Philadelphia with five syllables (apologies if I've left any surfeit-syllable cities out).

I don't want to single anyone out (though I will) because I've heard several reporters (both from Vancouver and not) abbreviate Vancouver in this fashion, but the most recent reporter (and the one that finally tipped the bucket, so to speak, and provided the motivation for this post) was James Duthie on TSN, on a live national broadcast of the NHL playoffs.  Say it ain't so!

The last example for this post is regarding a link on CNN.com, titled "Brodeur blanks Cats, sets record", linking to this story.  Now, abbreviating team names ('Nucks', 'Wings', 'Sens', "Hawks' for example) is nothing new, but this is just going too far.  Brodeur plays for the New Jersey Devils, who are currently in a series versus the Florida Panthers, not the Florida Cats.

Update (25APR2012):  Ugh. Now cbcsports is calling the Florida Panthers, "Cats".

The (Totally) Phantom Menace

:o)



Found on "One Cool Thing a Day".

Honking as an Excuse

My first post of 2012 and turns out it's another rant.  Oh well.

My apartment building has multilevel underground parking, which is good; each and every corner, however, is a blind corner, which is bad.  When I first moved in I noticed some residents would honk as they approached a corner, which is good... in theory.  Why only in theory?  Two reasons, one perhaps slightly facetious, the second more dangerous. 

What happens if you're leaving and you hear someone honk?  What do you do, honk back?  Do you both stop, honking one after the other while you each try to figure out which direction the other is going, what level they're on?  Shave-and-a-haircut... two-bits! 

More seriously, though, is that too many use honking as license to drive too quickly in the underground parking.  Just because you honk doesn't mean you can blithely cruise around two successive blind corners at 30+ km/h. 

Fortunately, management has now placed convex mirrors on each and every corner, which is good, meaning that in practice there are no more blind corners.    The bad?  Some drivers are still honking (look at the mirrors, already!) and speeding like if they don't gain a minute on their day they'll lose a million bucks.

Canada Post Can Be Aggravating

Just as this post title says, sometimes Canada Post can be aggravating.

• I'd ordered an item online from Amazon.ca and was following its progress via its Canada Post tracking number.   My order left the warehouse in Ontario and arrived at a Canada Post sorting facility, a mere 40-60 minute drive from my address, on the same day -- where it promptly stayed for two weeks.  Did it fall behind a counter or something?
• After the Canada Post lock-out ended earlier this year, all I received was junk mail for the first week or so before receiving any legitimate mail.
• Another example:  I knew Canada Post had attempted delivery of an order because I had its tracking number.  However, when I returned home there was no delivery notice in sight.  No biggie, since I was still able to pick up the package at a local post office using the tracking number.  The aggravating part?  A week after picking up the package, I finally received the failed delivery notice in my mail box. 
• At my current residence I receive an inordinate amount of wrong mail -- correct address, incorrect recipients (I assume previous residents).  Each time I dutifully write "not at address" on the envelope and send it back to Canada Post.  Aggravation?  When weeks later I receive the exact same letter, AGAIN.  Do I really need to write "not at address" twice? Should I capitalize?  Highlighted in nice red ink?