The Penalty Box

I’m not sure which designer they consulted to create the new jersey template for the Canucks, but that designer seemingly came from the same class of dumbasses that loves wordmarks (or the jackass that brought us the Flying V). Similar to Nashville and LA, the Canucks now have the word VANCOUVER stitched across the top of the logo. In a sport where the team logo is the primary identifier, and where often the simplest jerseys are the best and most elegant looking (see: Boston, Detroit, Montreal), some marketing douchebag decided to go against the grain and try to make it “unique.” In doing so, he/she has effectively told all hockey fans “You are a dumbass” by putting the city name on the jersey. Why not put a goddamn map on it while you’re at it, and REALLY tell people where the team is from? Can’t confuse it with Vancouver, Washington now, can we?

I’m not sure if it’s some idiotic 2010 marketing ploy or if it was some silly idea to try to combine as many past jersey elements together to form the new look, but the VANCOUVER wordmark completely ruins the look of the jersey. Now it’s cluttered, distracts from the logo and puts letters too close to the captain’s letterings. What are they going to do, increase the size of the C and A in VANCOUVER to identify the captain and alternate captains?

Taking 30 seconds with Photoshop’s clone tool yields this. Isn’t that much better? The logo has less colours, making it more brandable. That satisfies the idiot marketers. The team identifies with the logo. The colour scheme is awesome. IT’S NOT CLUTTERED. This whole silly campaign of Reebok trying to put its stamp on the jersey market after buying out CCM is retarded, and it’s letting deluded executives and drugged up designers come up with horrible after horrible idea. Vertical piping? Lacing on a modern cut? Off-coloured sleeves? Numbers on the front? This is not basketball. Frankly, with all the stupid “Let’s combine everything in the past into one!” ideas, why not go all the goddamn way?
God willing, there will be enough of a public outcry to remove that stupid wordmark. But who am I kidding? It’ll sell out because people are excited about the upcoming season, a season that follows a division championship and a semi-extended playoff run. Don’t even get me started on the new pricing scheme for jerseys, brought to you by the asspirates at RBK. That’s for another post.

The C in the hockey stick/rink shape was plain, elegant, simple and classy.  It shouldn’t have been changed in the first place.

My co-worker recently bought one of these, and it arrived today.  It pretty much does most of what I’d like to see in a handheld (Linux, wireless, solid state), except for one thing: battery life isn’t optimal.  Tests rate it at about 4 hours with wireless, so it’d probably be closer to 6 or so without.  At that point, it’s not that much different from an ultra-portable laptop, aside from a smaller form factor.  It’s the second generation of the device, the first being the 770.

I think I might wait a few months to see what the market bears.  Obviously this is a pretty good benchmark, given it has stuff like a webcam and solid state drives.  It sure looks pretty damn cool, and coupled with a Bluetooth keyboard, it’s pretty awesome.  I really wish battery life were improved, because I would definitely spring for one if it hit 8 hours optimal run time.  Heck, the Nintendo DS gets 14 hours play time easy, more if you crank down the brightness.  Mind you it doesn’t run anything as intensive as the n800, but still, it’s a big jump.  I wonder what Dell will do with the Axims; Ubuntu is releasing a mobile version in the fall, so maybe Dell will come out with an awesomer Axim loaded with Ubuntu.

In other news, Trevor Linden re-upped with the Canucks for one more year.  Also, training camp for the Canucks begins on September 7th, less than 3 weeks away! Hockey’s coming! Hockey’s coming!

And speaking of which, why the hell isn’t there a hockey game for the Wii yet?

It’s full contact soccer.  Soccer with bodychecks.  Plus you can do fun stuff like grow big and squish people.  But you can bodycheck.  They should play soccer like this in real life.

I’ve been finished classes and exams for a year now, and it’s a rather odd feeling.  It really hasn’t felt like a year has passed since I’ve completed all necessary requirements for my BSc.  Yet in less than two months, it’ll be a year since I’ve convocated and a year since I’ve started working full time.  I’ve moved out and not starved.  I’ve actually started thinking about RRSPs, a down payment for a place of my own and opened an investment portfolio.  Growing up feels really weird.

Recently I read an article on the Internet about how the 20s are the new teens.  More and more, young adults are doing all the stupid shit they should’ve gotten out of their system when they were 16.  Instead, drug experimentation, DUIs and general asshattery has spilled into early to mid 20s.  While there haven’t exactly been ideal role models for twenty-somethings, the party lust hasn’t died as quickly as previous generations.  The rebellious “rage against the man” phase has seemingly extended further into adulthood.  I don’t know if parents have turned into a generation of wimps or what, but it sounds as if a lot of people my age are still rather carefree.  Undoubtedly it has something to do with an average university education taking a lot longer than 4 years.

I just wonder where the hell these people end up, because there’s an awful lot of them.  There’s only so many burger flippers and manual labour to go around.  And how have they not flunked out yet already? Then again, to get into SFU Computing Science these days you need something idiotically low like 75%, a far cry from the 93% for my year.  Catering to the stupid is a disturbing trend, and only goes to show that natural selection doesn’t apply to humans.  We’re doing a remarkably good job at protecting the stupid and weak.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve missed out on anything, having somewhat grown up rather quickly.  I won’t ever get drunk due to medical reasons.  I no longer have the energy, or will, to party to dawn.  Popular destinations to “go out” to (like clubs) appear more annoying and useless than fun.  I feel more like a 35 year old in a club than a 23 year old.  I take a look at what people my age do, and I wonder how it’s fun or how they don’t think about the mounds of debt they are heaping upon themselves.  Or if they’re not partying on loans, how their parents justify supporting such a unsustainable lifestyle.  I guess I just moved past that mentality years ago (though I’m not sure if I ever even got to that point, I probably skipped it).

So at what point do these carefree twenty-somethings realize what the real world is like? While it’d be funny to watch them crash and burn, they probably would just tax the welfare system to its limits.  Maybe we can just feed them to the hobos downtown.

Go see it.

They took a good creative angle to make it different enough to not destroy my happy childhood memories.  A good balance of action and cheese.

Ever since I picked up my camera, weddings have been a little less boring to attend. Mind you, most of the weddings I have attended have been family weddings.  Given the penchant for a low alcohol tolerance (and thus, a low amount of drinking) amongst my Chinese relatives, not a whole lot of entertaining stuff goes on.  Kim and Logan got married this past Saturday, and since it wasn’t a wedding attended mainly by Asian people, there would be a high probability of hilarity.  Armed with my trusty digital camera and plenty of card space, I set out to capture a few choice moments that were sure to come in such a celebratory (and alcohol-filled) occasion.

One of the byproducts of snapping photos of people is that you get to do a lot of people watching. At the wedding, there were plenty of people to watch. Looking at the bride and the groom, you could feel the love between the two. Not the disgustingly cute puppy love many couples put on display - this was more than infatuation. It was grown up, for lack of a better term. A nice reminder that, if you should be lucky to be one of the few, to find somebody that can tolerate you, it’s a pretty damn good thing to have, this crazy little thing called love. Mind you, I can’t think of a wedding without The Impressive Clergyman in The Princess Bride saying “Mawage, Mawage.”

A more amusing character was one of the groomsmen, who decided to indulge himself heavily in the alcoholic offerings of the bar.  More amusing was him following Karen around all night like a lost puppy.  Oh, did I mention he decided to hump the groom and dance with his shirt unbuttoned.  At one point he was pretty close to giving the mother of the bride a lap dance.  If you think she was mortified by the whole thing, she didn’t display it very well as her camera was clicking away during all of this.

Bishnu was his usual smartass self, taking pictures of food and himself.  Oh yeah, and girls bending over.  Subtle, eh? And he wasn’t even drinking! All this really means is that he has to get drunk again so he becomes hilariously belligerent (well, more than normal anyways).
So indeed, a merry time was had by all.  Good company, good wine and good welcome can indeed make good people.

The timing of the music is pretty good too.