Synopsis (from IMDB):  In Thailand, John Rambo joins a group of mercenaries to venture into war-torn Burma, and rescue a group of Christian aid workers who were kidnapped by the ruthless local infantry unit.

When I first heard that this movie was being made, I sat back and immediately wondered how crappy it would turn out.  While the first Rambo movie was great, the second was saved by all of the (mostly nonsensical) action, and the third movie a complete disaster.  I expected much the same from the latest offering, yet I was pleasantly surprised.

In so saying that, don’t run out and nominate this movie for an Oscar.  However, it is decent, passable fare with a decent storyline.  John Rambo is leading a quiet life when asked to venture into Burma to rescue some aid workers.  He does not want to get involved, but due to an incident with river pirates and being forced further downriver, he has little choice.  This movie has been banned in Burma, where bootlegs are a hot commodity.  The military Junta (in real life) that runs Burma did not want this movie to be seen as it illustrates their real-life brutality.  The Burmese freedom fighters have adopted some of the movie’s dialogue as battle cries.

If you do not like violence, then stay away from this flick.  It averages 2.13 kills per minute, making it one of the most violent movies ever made.  Most of the kills come in the final scene of the movie, and look very realistic.  Due to that reason alone (as there were hardly any swear words), this is not a movie for impressionable children.

Social networking sites are now all the rage.  MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and Twitter now dominate the Internet as much as Google and YouTube.  The fascinate people and consume their time like nothing else has ever done before.  People on average spend more time on these sites than they do in front of the television (which I call, as Doctor Who so brilliantly put it, The Idiot’s Lantern).

I understand the reasons behind Facebook, Friendster, and MySpace.  For those people who do not wish to spend time learning web page design, or do not wish to pay for their own site, it gives them an instant quick and ready presence on the Internet to interact with others.  Sharing photos, video, and information about yourself is addictive.  It’s an ego tweak for some and a way to keep people informed for others.

Yet, I ask myself “How much is too much?”  High school students spend so much time on Facebook during their classes that they do not get anything done.  They will drop the class if they cannot access Facebook.  People at work are the same.  They are addicted to the site.  They do not have the time to get their work done, but somehow have the time to update their Facebook status hourly. 

Reuters estimates that Facebook costs Australian companies upwards of $4.5 billion dollars a year.  In the United Kingdom, the figure is estimated to be $275 million dollars per day.  I.T. security firm Global Secure Systems surveyed 1,000 school kids aged 13 to 17 in London, England.  52% of kids surveyed used classroom time to surf social networking sites, and 50% of these teenagers said they spent over thirty minutes a day browsing them.  The average user spends 20 minutes a day logged into Facebook, and two thirds of all users login at least once a day.

That’s a lot of time.

Perhaps we are witnessing a social revolution of sorts.  An offline change to an online presence.  As for me personally, I login to Facebook perhaps every other day and generally do not spend more than a couple of minutes there.  Admittedly, it is a convenient method to keep up to date with the people around you.  As for Twitter, I do have an account, though I have no use for it at the moment.

Thinking through some more, I do see one benefit of sites such as Twitter, in that they allow people in oppressed nations such as North Korea, Iran, and China to post real time updates of happenings that their respective governments may wish to suppress.  A new method of global communication that every government is powerless to stop.

The weather is not helping my summer of fun.  Its hard to get out and do things when it is raining all the time.  In as much as I do not like the super hot humid weather, I like the rain even less.  Getting wet while trying to enjoy yourself sucks (unless you happen to be at a water park).

In any event, if the weather cooperates, I intend to head out to the Niagara region for the long weekend.  I will traverse through Buffalo, as well as Niagara Falls (Clifton Hill) and Marineland.  It should make for a nice mini-vacation away from everything.

With any luck, the Toronto city-workers strike will end and then I can get the CityPass and enjoy Toronto some more.  The city is beginning to smell pretty bad.  It does not look to good, either.  People will soon lose patience and start dumping their garbage everywhere, and they will not care about getting a ticket.  Soon, it will become a public health hazard.

It’s hard to blame the city, however.  In this case, the workers are the ones being greedy, as I mentioned in a previous post.  My suggestion would be to try and break the union.  The facts are simple.  Business is down, tourism is down, and unemployement is high.  Not exactly the best time to strike.

I don’t think the union has much to worry about, however.  David Miller (the mayor of Toronto) is pro-union and would never agree to such a drastic maneuver.  The unions supported his bid to get elected, and turning his back on them would likely seal his political career.

On first thought, visiting a park in Toronto in the middle of a strike by the city workers would seem like a dumb idea.  However, throwing caution to the wind, last week I went down there for the first time ever.  And the second time ever.

Both times I enjoyed myself immensely, and spent about four hours each time walking through the park.  I went with my beautiful friend, her daughter, and their dog.  We had a great time.  We walked the dog, ran the dog, and taught the dog how to swim.  We brought some snacks and the weather decided to cooperate.

For the most part, the park was pretty clean despite the strike.  I am guessing that people are chipping in and cleaning up after themselves, and restraining themselves from littering.  One think I will say is to not venture off of the trails unless you enjoy trampling in dog shit.  This has been an ongoing problem for years, however, and is not related to the strike.  I recall many years ago working with a gentleman who enjoyed numerous walks through the park, and he mentioned the problem with the dog shit as well.  Oh well, to get out and enjoy nature in the middle of Canada’s largest city, it is a small price to pay.

Walking outside experiencing nature with good company is very relaxing.  It will be fun to do it again, perhaps in a different park.  Additionally, it’s great exercise.

This little girl was abducted eleven weeks ago.  I have refrained from commenting so insofar as I have been watching the events unfold.  The police have now found her body and have two people in custody, both of whom has been charged with capital murder.  Oddly, however, they have yet to acknowledge or confirm that Victoria Stafford has been murdered.  Now that they have the little girls remains, I’m sure this will happen in short order.

On a number of fronts this entire case has been a comedy of errors.  Unfortunately, the life of a little girl has been lost and nobody is laughing.  There are so many questions to still be answered.  The police will catch a lot of heat for not issueing an Amber Alert immediately following the disappearance.  At the time, Tori’s disappearance did not meet the strict criteria of an Amber Alert, though I still believe that instead of following the letter of the criteria they should have followed the spirit in which it was written.  While this in the long term may lead to a few more false positives, it would have absolved them of any blame in the disappearance.  Sadly, we can only wonder “what if,” because we will never know if that would have made a difference.

How Tori’s parents have conducted themselves thus far is somewhat deploreable as well.  Instead of letting police investigators do their jobs, they are holding daily news conferences.  For what reason, I ask?  Do they like the media spotlight on themselves?  Compounding the issue is that they do not get along, are fighting in public, and have dragged this out into the public eye.  I understand their frustration, but this conflict solves nothing.  Their little girl is gone forever.

Crimes such as these both sadden and scare me.  I wonder how people such as the monsters who committed this heinous crime wander among us.  The two people in custody are innocent until proven guilty.  To that end it is premature to judge them, as they are innocent until proven guilty.  Should they found guilty, they will both be imprisoned for the rest of their natural lives.  Unfortunately, after fifteen years they can apply under the “Faint Hope Clause” for early parole (as they are not multiple murderers).  Ten percent of the criminals who apply are granted parole.  The Conservative Government has introduced a motion to repeal this part of the criminal code, but the bill has not passed through the House of Commons as of yet.

I’m sure there are many Liberals out there who will be against repealing the Faint Hope Clause.  Yet I would say to each and every one of them, if it was their child, would they like to see their murderer back out on the streets in fifteen years?  My guess is that I think not.  Being sentenced to life in prison should mean life.  Period.  You do not send child killers to prison in the hope that you can rehabilitate them, you send them to prison to serve out their punishment meted out by a jury of their peers.

As one can natually understand, the public at large is outraged and they want justice.  Every time a crime such as this occurs, there are always calls to bring back capital punishment.  Some will say that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent.  I personally do not see it as a deterrent either.  I see it as an eye for an eye.  Personally, I would have no qualms about administering a lethal injection or pulling the trigger.

No matter what happens to the killers of Tori Stafford however, it does not bring her back.  She is still dead.  Gone forever.

Cecilia Zhang, Alison Parrot, Holly Jones, Kristen French, Leslie Mahaffy, and so many others.  Tori Stafford’s name has been added to theirs.  Children murdered.  Lives unfulfilled.

Microsoft is venturing in the world of the free, and has announced that they will be making a version of their popular office software available for free sometime early in 2010.  This represents a very marked shift in their corporate strategy.  Microsoft Office is one of the largest moneymakers for the company, accounting for approximately $20 billion dollars in sales annually.

This is great news for personal users, who would be more than likely not to purchase a new copy of office every couple of years.  They would rather stick with their copy of Office ‘95 (or 97 or whatever) because there is no fundamental need to upgrade.  I don’t think Microsoft will lose much here.  As we all know, piracy is rampant and I’m sure that this announcement will curb that somewhat as well.  There is no need to steal something that is being given away for free.

The complimentary version of Office 2010 will run within a browser (and somewhat surprisingly, Mozilla and Firefox will be supported natively).  Microsoft will never be the corporate darling of the mass majority of users, yet their software is used by these same people worldwide.  Sometimes, I think that is a tad hypocritical, for if you do not like the company (and bitch about their products constantly) then perhaps you should not use them.

In a different track, the darling corporation of Internet users, Google, is pursuing a different track.  Their version of Google Apps now has a yearly charge of $50.00 (though the free version still remains).  It seems that they are slowly evolving into a more Microsoft-like corporation.  I do not condemn them, however.  The simple fact is that a company cannot survive by giving everything away for free.  If you live by the free, you die by the free.

Microsoft and Google are now both aggressively pursuing the corporate (or B2B) market.  Microsoft has known for years, and as Google is now finding out, that while providing their products for little or no cost to consumers, they have to profit significantly through the corporate sector to survive.  They can make money through “free” by selling advertising and so forth, but they cannot do this forever.  Eventually another company will take over.  Good examples of this are Google taking over from Yahoo, or Facebook taking over from MySpace who took over from Friendster.

UFC 100 is in the books!

There were two title fights on the card.  In the first title fight, the UFC Welterweight Champion, Georges St. Pierre, retained his title in a five round domination of Thiago Alves.  In the main event of the night, the UFC Heavyweight Champion, Brock Lesnar, emerged victorious over Interim Heavyweight Champion Frank Mir by way of TKO in the second round.

Lesnar was far more composed in this, his second fight against Mir.  In the first fight, Mir submitted Lesnar with a kneebar less than two minutes into the fight.  You can blame the loss on a questionable decision to stand the fighters up, or on Lesnars inexperience, but a loss is a loss.  This time, Brock was far more disciplined, pinning Mir up against the cage and reigning down blows until referee Herb Dean had no choice but to stop the bout.  It would be remiss of me not to mention Lesnar’s post fight rant, which was very unprofessional.  I understand that fighting for him is very emotional, but that does not justify running down his opponent or the sponsors or suggesting that he’s going home to bang his wife.  In the post-fight news conference, Lesnar was apologetic and said he recieved a verbal tongue lashing from Dana White, the President of the the UFC.

Georges St. Pierre continues to impress me.  Despite tearing his abductor muscle in the third round, he continued to fight as if nothing was wrong and dominated the much larger Thiago Alves for the rest of the fight.  In the post fight interview, you could see that he was in tremendous pain.  The quote of the night has to go to his trainer, Greg Jackson, upon hearing from his fighter that his groin muscle was torn, he said, “I don’t care!  Hit him with it!”

When talking about the best pound for pound MMA fighters, three names come to mind.  Fedor Emelianenko, Georges St. Pierre, and Anderson Silva.  Many people would love to see a superfight between GSP and Anderson Silva, but that to me is a long way off.  First, Georges St. Pierre has to heal up, and Anderson has a tremendous challenge ahead of him next month at UFC 101, when he faces Forrest Griffin.  Furthermore, for a fight of this magnitude to happen, GSP would have to begin a slow weight build to 185 lbs.  That would leave the welterweight division devoid of a champion for awhile (not that that is a big deal, because GSP has essentially cleaned out the division).

Personally, I would love to see a fight between Jake Shields and GSP.  Jake Shields is one of the best fighters in the world, and is not signed to a UFC contract.  At this point in time, I think he would provide the only significant challenge to GSP’s dominance at welterweight.  Rumor has it, however, that the next title fight will be between GSP and the winner of Martin Kampmann and Mike “Quick” Swick.

In other action, the knockout of the year so far has to go to Dan Henderson.  His big right hand knocked Michael Bisping all the way back to England.  It was sweet justice for Hendo, who had to endure Bispings’ taunts throughout Season Nine of the Ultimate Fighter.  It was made doubly sweet as Bisping laughed off Henderson’s knockout power, suggesting that he had not knocked anyone out in five years and hits like a little girl.

This fight was not competitive from the beginning, with Henderson stalking Bisping relentlessly and Bisping circling away.  Bisping tried a takedown on the former two-time Olympic wrestler, which brought a smile to Hendersons face.  “Nice try, Mike,” was probably what was going through Henderson’s mind.

In other action, Jon Fitch grounded out another victory against Paulo Thiago, and Alan Belcher lost a controversial decision to Akiyama.  Another shining example of why you do not leave anything in the hands of the judges. 

I think Akiyama would be better fighting at 170 lbs, as he looked very small compared to Belcher.  This is because Japanese fighters (especially those that previously fought in Pride and Dream) do not cut weight like their American and Brazilian counterparts do.  Speaking of cutting weight, I think CroCop could do serious damage as a light heavyweight as well.  It will be interesting to see how Wanderlei Silva does at 185, after fighting all those years at 205.  At 195, he looked good against Rich Franklin, despite taking the loss.

It has been years since I’ve been to Red Lobster.  I do enjoy seafood, but there is no Red Lobster close to me.  For supper last night, I met up with some great company and we went for a drive.

Prior to ordering, the waiter brought out some complimentary hot garlic bread to snack on.  I ordered the wood-cooked chicken, shrimp and scallops combo, as did my friends.  Unfortunately, they made an error with our order, with each of us getting an extra shrimp skewer at the expense of the chicken.  Mistakes do happen, and once we informed the waiter he immediately corrected it.  To me, it does not matter if you make a mistake, but its how you correct it.  The manager even dropped by the table to ensure that we were satified.  The chicken was the juiciest chicken I’ve eaten in a long time, the scallops were perfect, as was the shimp.  We ate at our leisure, and we did not feel rushed in any way (this is a major pet peeve of mine).  We were there for about three hours.  All in all, a great experience and I will be returning.

It’s a short, small start to my Summer of Fun, but a pretty good.

I have to give props to Mega-Bloks, even if only in a short post.  Recently I purchased some of their products at an auction, and one of them did not have an instruction manual.  This was noted in the auction and the set is from 1999.

I visited their website and requested an instruction manual.  I did not know if they would even have the manual, or if I could get a pdf copy of it.  I did not expect an original manual to arrive on my doorstep two days later.  That was, to say the least, impressive.

Thank you, Mega-Bloks!