“Can you help me discover more music that I’ll like?

Those questions often evolved into great conversations. Each friend told us their favourite artists and songs, explored the music we suggested, gave us feedback, and we in turn made new suggestions. Everybody started joking that we were now their personal DJs.

We created Pandora so that we can have that same kind of conversation with you.

Pandora is a music discovery service designed to help you enjoy music you already know, and to help you discover new music you’ll love.

It’s powered by the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken, the Music Genome Project: a crazy project started back in early 2000 to capture the complex musical DNA of songs using a large team of highly-trained musicians.

Just tell us one of your favorite songs or artists and we’ll launch a streaming station to explore that part of the musical universe.”

I found this really cool site today called Pandora. (I have since been proclaimed Captain Cool by Nick because of it. Hurrah!) Pandora is a great example of what the Internet is becoming, and how web 2.0 is changing the way we think of the Internet. Pandora is alot like an Internet radio station. But instead of listening some someone’s play list or something like that, Pandora asks you to input an artist or song name, and then uses it’s Music Genome to find and play songs and artists similar to what you put in, and helps you find new artists, songs, and sometimes even musical styles that hopefully you’ll like. I approve!

Shamrock Hat
Originally uploaded by Steve Z..

St. Patrick’s Day is fun. Mostly because it’s fun watching drunk people. And drinking is fun too, but mostly watching drunk people. We went to Flatlander’s for St. Patrick’s Day this year. Got ourselves a couple of titanics of brew (A titanic is a 4L pitcher of beer for those that don’t know), and I think that Great Western Black is now my favorite Canadian beer. Guinness is still my #1 for now though, followed by Kilkenny. Mmmm Mmmm good. And Ham got himself snickerdoodled (As he likes to call it). Good times.

Well, tonight was to be my St. Practice day toast. And I made the toast. But only one other person heard it. No one came but me and Riley. I was expecting at least one other person, but there was no one. Well, that’s not entirely true. Nick did come at about 9:30. He didn’t have any money and therefor had no intention of drinking at all, but at least he came. Nick gets a gold star. Better luck next time, I hope. Toodles.

Guinness Slate 1280
Originally uploaded by Steve Z..

Well, I’ve finally picked a time and place for the great Toast. Anyone who’s interested in either the toast, some good beer, or just bored, head on down to the Copper Mug at around 8ish and we’ll try and congregate into a group of people. Hurrah! See you there!

300
Originally uploaded by Steve Z..

We went to see 300 tonight, and I’ve got just one word for it: Wow. Probably the best fight seems in modern cinema, toss in some great acting and dialogue, and a visual feel that is incredibly unique and engaging. In essence, the film is basically a 2 hour fight scene, with a small bit of dialogue and background in the beginning, and then small chunks of the same throughout. But the battles are so well done, and aw striking, you’d never want to change anything. Spears are put through people, arms and legs are cut of. Men are beheaded, and though it sounds gruesome and barbaric, it’s all so well done, believable, and works to demonstrate the strength and fines that is the Spartans. Oh, and there’s giant elephants. There’s regular sized elephants, and then there’s giant elephants. These seemed rather giant. And a giant rhino.

Go see 300. Go see it now. I’m not talking to you until you get back from seeing 300. Why are you still here?!

Oh, something completely unrelated. I fully encourage anyone who reads to leave comments, but please leave your name so I know who you are, otherwise it’s like there’s someone in the witness protection program leaving a comment, and nobody likes those people. I’m sure if they were well liked they wouldn’t be in the protection program to begin with, hmm?

Wow. Um…Yeah. So apparently someone from work caught wind of my blog and read through it. Apparently they didn’t like what they read. Apparently they brought my blog to the attention of the management at work. Apparently they didn’t like me mentioning what I do, or talking about work or things related to it. Apparently I’ve been terminated. After almost a year and a half of providing great customer service for thousands of white computer users, I was terminated after writing about what I do and who I work for. All comments written, of course, on my blog. My personal web log.

So now what? I’m not sure. I need to find something else to do to earn that valuable and intangible representation of worth (Some people like to call it money). What’s on that horizon? I dunno, maybe Nura Net. Maybe OTV, I hear they’re looking for support peoples. We’ll see.

But what do you think? Questions? Comments? Suggestion? Leave a comment or drop me a line. Lets hear from you!

Guinness Slate 1280
Originally uploaded by Steve Z..

Every year since 1993, on the 3rd Friday of every February is the Great Guinness Toast, the largest toast in the world, where people from all over North America, Europe, and lets hope Australia too because I like them allot, gather to raise a glass in the name of good times and great beer. And I missed it.

I missed the Toast last year too, and I swore I wouldn’t miss it again. But I did anyway. Damn it all. So I shall swear, nay, PROCLAIM! That I shall not miss St. Practice Day (The day of the Great Guinness Toast) next year!

But that’s a long ways off. So lets make up for lost time shall we? March 17th is St. Patrick’s Day. Not that we need an excuse to drink. But on the 16th I shall be holding my very own St. Practice Day. Not only to make up for missing the last Toast, but to do a little warm-up before St. Patrick’s Day. I invite one and all who know how to contact me to do so, as I’ll be trying to get a hold of enough ale and stout for all who care to join me. Huzzah!

“Hold your pint high. And look all about,

“A legion of Guinness, the world’s favourite stout.

“May you find the true wisdom of what matters most,

“A great pint of Guinness, and a Great Guinness Toast.”

Well, It think I have a plan now. On Tuesday I went back to my high school, Walter Murray, and had a meeting with my old guidance councilor, Mr. Humbert. We talked about a bunch of things, mostly what I was talking about earlier in the week about university and things. He game me some great information, and told me to check out a website that the high school uses to help students get information on careers and things like that, called Career Cruiser. Well I checked it out, and after going over alto of information, having it tell me what I’m good at, and thinking about things for the past couple days, I think I’ve got a plan together.

I’m going to go to university to get a degree in computer science. From there I could probably go alto of directions. I could get a job working as a computer support person (A fancy term for the IT guy in an office or something like that), work as a repair technician, some sort of software dude, or, and this is what I think I’m really hoping for, move into education teaching computer-type courses, like Comp Sci in high school, work as some sort of instructor type dude in an office helping people learn to use their computers there and getting software going, or do any of those for a while then go back to school and go even farther in education, maybe even become a professor of computer science. How cool would that be?!
So for now though, it’s keep on working. I need to get some money built up, which means I need to cut back on my spending some. I might look at working at a place like Nura Net, an Apple Authorized Service Provider that also does retail work for Appley things. Who knows, but the plan is somewhat formulated. Hooray!

I finished reading the Halo Graphic Novel today. Great stuff I must say.

The third story in the book is about Sarge, following him as he escapes from the Flood. There isn’t any dialog in this story, it’s all art. And fantastic art at that, not only does it look great but it really tells the story very well even though there’s no words to guide you along.

The last story is about New Mombasa, and what it was like before the Covenant invaded Earth. It also shows that the UNSC was filling earth with allot of propaganda about the war in space before the Covenant got to Earth.

Great art, great writing, great graphic novel. I really hope Bungie decides to pursue future volumes of the Halo Graphic Novel.

I picked up the Halo Graphic Novel yesterday afternoon. It’s got 4 stories in it and I’ve read the first. Each one has a different artist and writer, and all the stories are supposed to fit really well within the Halo universe, and really give alot of insight.

I haven’t read any farther than that yet, but so far I can say that it’s going to be a very well done book. In the forward it’s said that they didn’t want to make comic that would just ride on Halo’s wake or just be random stories and characters that didn’t matter. They wanted to make something cool. So for I’d say they did a damn good job.