Dawn
of MiniMeat - 12:30pm
Tue Apr20, 2004 |
Now
that was more fun than I had expected! It's
been quite a couple days and it's not over yet as
I teeter on over 30 hours of alertness with little
food, but I'm sure I could still kick your ass in
Quake. Isis was unbelievable and rock solid;
we're very proud to show the first image of MiniMeat
to our friends around the world - Please say greetings
to Myles Dale Milton, born April 20th at 07:05am
thanks to the unreal human hands of the staff at
Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga. Isis
laboured many, many hard hours but we moved to a
C-section since little Myles was not willing to
come out (...we're sure he had a toe-hold on at
least two ribs...) It may have also had something
to do with him clocking in at 9lbs 10-1/2oz.
Yes, he's a big strapping lad and she was what anyone
would call a trooper beyond, thanks for Myles baby!
This
next image shows why Isis happens to be the greatest;
this was taken a second after she just punched through
an 8.5 on the labour-scale wave of contractions;
note how I keep all things calm by being a complete
ass-hole no matter how sensitive or important the
moment; but check her out, a real smile. Although
the nurses liked our room the best since we were
so much 'fun', this was Isis' and my first child
and she's still got a smile while I acted my moron
self, now that's moxie (...she had no "spinal-implant"
as this was taken, so she's very much enjoying the
pain in all it has to offer...) I've run home
to shower and change as we're still awaiting our
private room, Isis remains in post-op recovery and
is now enduring all the well-wishers piling at her
rooms door, all the while smiling as her morphine
tapers off... What a trooper. Love you.
|
09:00am
Mon Apr19, 2004 |
We've
packed our bottles of "Crystal Springs Bottled Water"
as it's pure and SPAM-free, we've got our Champagne, sandwiches
are packed, laptop and cameras charged -- It's off to
the hospital for Isis and myself! As she's now 10
days overdue, the doctor has decided it's done and ready
to come out; so we're booked in for a Monday morning birth.
Why today? Several reasons... It's the 19th
today, that means nothing but I thought I'd mention it.
Mondays always suck, this may alter our perspective on
Mondays. We're going to hit a record high of 25°C
today so the windows are open and spring's here; perfect!
That and of course game 7 of the Leafs vs. Senators is
tomorrow night. Thank-you all once again from both
of us for all the letters and well-wishes; we appreciate
each and every one of them. Checking in to Hotel
ScreamAlot now -- enjoy your Monday.
|
11:45am
Fri Apr16, 2004 |
Everyone
will agree that SPAM has become a very real problem, this
week the unthinkable happened to me; while in a meeting,
my cell phone’s email alarm went off – swiftly
I grabbed my phone thinking it must be Isis telling me
she’s ready to birth, but that was far from the
case; the following message appeared: “I know you’ve
been looking for a great water company that delivers.
I found one, go to orderbottledwater.com, for great pricing
and service.” This is where the shit hits the fan;
with email SPAM raging out of control, I can at least
take measures to contain it, but someone actually sending
SPAM to my personal cell phone – you have no filter
ability for this and most people pay per message. Enraged
by this complete violation, within 3 minutes I had tracked
the SPAMMER down, the parent company, his full name, his
work address, his email address and his cell phone number…
You won’t believe who it is; a company whose reputation
just took a complete shit in my books (…as it should
in yours…) The following is a complete transcript
of our email exchange thus far:
From:
MeatMan
Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 3:22 PM
To: michaelgabbard@rogers.com
Subject: Oh no... You've SPAMMED the wrong phone,
Michael! |
Mr.
Gabbard...
I consider Cedar Springs to be a reputable company
selling a decent product; all of that just went
to hell in a hand basket after my CELL PHONE received
a SPAM from your company under the URL of orderbottledwater.com
I will not go into the details of my utter distain
for SPAM, but I will tell you how offended I am
to think companies actually have the impudence to
SPAM someone's cell. This costs me money. I do not
use "opt-out" listings until I'm sure
that's exactly what's going to happen when I press
submit. Who is doing the actual SPAM mailings please
and how do I get removed from it?
Further, I strongly suggest Cedar Springs INSTANTLY
discontinue this practice.
Craig Milton |
He
did reply promptly, however the reply did not reach me
so I re-mailed him (…his first reply was delayed
due to SPAM traffic I’m sure…) but he quickly
answered:
From:
Michael Gabbard
Sent: Wed 14/04/2004 12:28 PM
To: MeatMan
Subject: RE: Oh no... You've SPAMMED the wrong phone,
Michael! |
Mr.
Milton, Thank you for your email.
We
had inadvertently emailed a small series of cell
phone numbers, among which was your cell phone,
with our offer to visit orderbottledwater.com.
We apologize for this inconvenience, and will of
course take steps to make sure that your cell phone
is not emailed again. If you would kindly pass on
your cell phone number, which will be kept confidential,
I will make sure that our provider removes it from
their database.
I appreciate your opinion on the spam issue, and
I will pass your comments on, which will be reviewed
and taken into consideration in deciding if this
is a marketing approach that we wish to pursue.
Thanks
Michael Gabbard |
Although personal, I consider this to
be a somewhat canned answer, also full of untruths; my
retort was fired back:
From:
Craig Milton
Sent: Thu 4/15/2004 11:15 AM
To: michaelgabbard@rogers.com
Subject: Some times marketing departments don't have
the "right" idea. |
Thank-you
Michael…
There appears to be an issue with our mail server
then, afraid I did not receive your first message,
my apologies. My cell number is 555 555-1234. I
find it disturbing that someone can “inadvertently”
email someone’s cell phone, when the site
the SPAM directs you to has a cell phone number
removal box on it, which suggests the SPAM was indeed
intentional to my cell phone; I liken that to “inadvertently”
beating someone over the head with a baseball bat
23 times.
You have to understand the total scourge to the
internet that SPAM has become, but taking it to
the level of actually intruding on someone’s
paid for cell phone in order to force your advertising
message is in very simple terms, not acceptable
at all. I would like Cedar Springs to send me .10¢
cash to cover the cost of their advertising as incurred
by myself on your behalf when I was text-messaged
without provocation.
You may want to also “pass on” that
this form of marketing will result in corporate
suicide as I have full intension of letting the
public know exactly where and from whom this cell-phone
text messaging is coming from. Companies who hide
under the ambiguity of the net are one by one being
held accountable for their actions. If notification
in a very public forum about Cedar Springs new “marketing
idea” bothers your company, then it’s
obvious that your company is aware they’re
doing the wrong thing morally. Period; it's not
even a discussion.
…your product is supposed to be clear, clean,
pure and healthy; SPAM is none of these and I don’t
think attaching Cedar Springs to SPAM is going to
go over very well at all. Perhaps they'll have the
idea of selling Viagra over the internet next to
go with the water?
Regards,
Craig Milton |
So
where to go from here? Well, that all depends on what
their answer is to this last letter; but I’ll tell
you one thing – Abattoir.Net will never again order
Cedar Springs bottled water, nor will any of our four
coolers at work be refilled with their product and the
same goes for three other companies in my direct influence
who have been told to pull their product; I encourage
all loyal Abattoir.Net readers to do the same…
Cedar Springs, you're all wet.
|
11:45am
Fri Apr09, 2004 |
Now
that we've gone HD we're finding out there's a little more
to the purchase than just the digital system – turns
out that the software which comes with the JVC GR-HD1U camera
will not allow you to edit the footage you've taken, which
is fine since that's something you would do within a product
like Adobe® Premiere® Pro or "that there Apple
stuph"; problem is, there's no support for HD editing…
So with the software from the box, I can back-up my HD footage
to my computer as a ".m2t" file, but cannot edit
it, I can only view it and I have to do that through the
camera; not until you buy the "plug-in" for Adobe
by CineForm called AspectHD for Windows, an HD Editing package
who's authors even sport the JVC on their site. This little
add-on will expose itself for a shy $1,199.00 USD. My first
question, what the hell is an ".m2t" file?! Some
times things aren't always as complex as they seem; rename
your ".pk3" files in Quake to ".zip"
and you can open, edit, add, delete and generally goof around
with it in WinZip, simply put Quake's ".pk3" files
are just ".zip" files renamed. So let's just rename
one of the imported ".m2t" files to ".mpg"
and lookie-lookie; playable in Windows Media Player and
importable of course to Adobe for editing, seems it's just
an ".mpg" renamed to ".m2t" (…places
money back in pocket…) Now to start filling up folders
with digital droppings we think we can't live without and
that others will want to see.
In
our last super-captivating and spectacular minutes update,
we spoke of a young man named Josh (zookrabbi) Fortier
who walked the planet as an inverted Q-Tip with a mission;
the term "get a hair cut" bounced off this superman
of split ends in his pursuit to produce a large harvest
come shearing time. We’re very proud to announce
that zookrabbi lost 20 pounds and we have the before and
after shots to prove it. Everyone at Abattoir.Net is proud
of you zook, plus you look more aerodynamic. Josh raised
over 80,098.24 JPY (Japanese Yen) for two cancer causes;
nice job! Josh is now on a fundraiser for wigs - If you
would like to contribute a few bucks, the foundation's
still accepting and I'm sure Josh would be thrilled to
add a few more Yen, or if you just want to comment on
his new mellon, hit the Abattoir.BBs (Forum)
Time
to talk BTM LAN Party; although there's a spawn about
to enter the Abattoir at any given second (…Isis
can be heard jumping up and down in the kitchen as I’m
typing attempting to enduce…) we are fairly confident
MiniMeat will arrive well before May 1st. Members have
first run, but consider this the official announcement
for BTM43 "May Day" Edition as Battlefield 1942:
Vietnam and Unreal Tournament 2004 make their debut at
the Abattoir BTM along with the premier of FarCry. We
would like to thank EB Games in Oakville at Trafalgar
and Hwy 5 for all the great swag to throw out at this
BTM! If you're in need of any great game titles, it's
one stop to EB Games and you're in the game... Summer's
coming Folks, it's been a long time between BTM's and
we thank you for your patience; let's get some rockets
flying. Sign-up now! Remember to wear your best, we're
going to be filming Abattoir.Net's first HD spot on LAN
Parties. BTM43 "May Day" Edition – May
1st.
As
there is an excellent chance that this Minutes update
will be the last one written by a father of none considering
that today is Isis' official due date, I would like to
thank everyone for all the support and well wishes over
the last while; Isis and I are thrilled that there will
be a new addition to the Abattoir any minute… There's
still so much to do and I find myself saying; "I'll
get to that as soon as I have time" more and more
these days, yet I'm still trying to figure out what button
creates more time… I'm sure MiniMeat will tell me.
*grin* Let the sleepless nights begin. Thank God for the
Canadian government who banned
"dangerous" baby walkers yesterday in Canada;
they're asking anyone who has a stroller to destroy it
immediately. I think they should just start a "walker
registry" where legitimate walker enthusiasts can
practice safe walker use in a controlled environment;
I think it's called parenting. If you place your child
in a rolling scooter on a hardwood floor in front of open
stairs that head down, then I guess you're lucky to have
made it as far as you have in life. Stupid people; stop
wrecking everything for the rest of us. I stuck my finger
in the sockets over and over because I got off on the
buzz; I turned out okay.
|
11:55pm
Thu Apr01, 2004 |
Now
how can one start a LAN Minutes update on April Fool's Day;
due to the valve being turned back to "full anal penetration"
on our Ontario hydro electrical rates as of today, the Abattoir.Net
SuperFTP Server and cluster will be turned on and off using
a timer... As I type, Infinity is in the Server Room inserting
little blue pins into the wheel; we understand this may
cause the SuperFTP to drop your connection from time to
time but as we support the ability to resume your download,
we figure you can wait for your pron. If you would like
to become a member, we will
remove one blue pin. Intriguing, isn't it? We also accept
volunteers to run on the new "treadmill generators"
we have placed throughout LAN Central. If DieJestor promises
not to break my solar panels anymore, I think I'll start
collecting again tomorrow. Go, Liberals! Go!! *bangs head*
Married
life continues to show its daily joys; Isis is literally
on an “any second now” basis for popping out
MiniMeat. She has also formed her own gravitational field.
On March 13th weekend we attended our “how not to
kill your newborn the first week for Dummies” school
which turned out to be quite an interesting two day class
at Credit Valley Hospital; we’re ‘graduated
birthables’ after completing our course; best of luck
to all of you! On the second day, I was forced to eat Gravol
to calm my nausea, so while important “how not to
snap his neck” advise was being provided to the new
parents to be, yours truly was in the dark, back corner
with my head doing the moron-neck-bob while Isis continued
to poke me with a stick. Thanks to Geraldine and Dana our
teachers for putting up with my comedy from the back…
I could smell the estrogen so lofty in the air; it smelt
like burning.
Ever
do this? Forefront in the news lately has been what appears
to be Toronto the beautiful, turning into Toronto the downtrodden
as the media starts attacking the litter problem that seems
to have started running rampant lately. Taking the hint,
I hit the street with a garbage bag in hand the other night
and began doing a little block cleaning in the cold, light
drizzle… It didn’t take long for me to almost
fill a huge sized, non-biodegradable plastic garbage bag
with refuse which will in turn be shipped to Detroit next
week; but wait, where’s my wedding band? I was hoping
it was in the garbage bag, so CorpsE and I started the ugly
job of picking and sifting through soaking wet crap that
I’ve picked-up that others threw on the ground to
find my ring… Why does this just strike me as wrong
to start off with? If you throw litter on the ground, you
should have your ass kicked all over the city in a public
display. Anywhooz, CorpsE came up Lord Of The Rings when
he found it first; neat thing is, Isis has no idea this
happened (…until she reads the Minutes…)
Canadian MP3 jockeys sighed as a Federal Court ruling yesterday
said providing MP3 music files on P2P networks like Kazaa
is legal here. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein's decision
upsets the music industry since they're all happy on making
the ISP's provide files so they can start suing. Keep in
mind here Folks, this is stealing; if you like the tune
you buy the CD... Konrad von Finckenstein likened MP3 file
providers to a photocopy machine in a library. "I cannot
see a real difference between a library that places a photocopy
machine in a room full of copyrighted material and a computer
user that places a personal copy on a shared directory linked
to a P2P service," he said. Still stealing any way
you try to slice it, so before I'm accused of such, I'd
like to thank Canoe.ca for their excellent coverage, get
the full
story.
As
we evolve, you may have noticed this LAN Minutes has a different
look... The Abattoir has now gone High Definition. JVC recently
came out with the GR-HD1U
HiDEF Digital CyberCam. This camera brings HiDEF stream
to users for under $50,000.00 USD. Although I bought mine,
I'd like JVC Canada to send me another one "for evaluation
purposes" for the plug I'm about to make. If you're
in the market for a top notch digital system that turns
the pros heads, check the stats
out on this piece of work... As such, the unit has arrived
in time for MiniMeat; yes, I would have held out for iMax,
but they're still so expensive and noisy, don't even get
me started on the size. There's also a "Pro" packaged
version of the camera which didn't boast enough feature
for "me" to warrant the extra but may entice you,
check their site for details
and tell them the Abattoir sent you. We look forward to
producing shorts of the Abattoir BTM LAN Parties in High-Definition
and placing the 2.8Gig files on the SuperFTP for people
to download while the server turns off and on thanks to
the Liberals.
Who
ever said people with phreaky, out of control hair can't
get a make-over? This young man has sacrificed the ability
to get a job so he could grow hair; this is his story. We
thought we'd throw kudos out to our own Josh (zookrabbi)
Fortier who has endured massive delays for drying time,
huge expense on shampoo, not to mention the constant teasing
about his SIG file on Abattoir.BBs
for the selfless purpose of raising money for the cancer
assistance program and the canadian cancer society. Tomorrow
at 9:30am in Highland Secondary School's gym, zookrabbi
will have his head shaved. So far he has raised almost one
thousand dollars, we will acquire images, please stay tuned.
Many have been asking about the next BTM date, we have it
set already, but we can't tell you yet...
|
|
MeatMan
Says:
"If you're new to Abattoir.Net and want to get to know what
we're all about, sit back with a cup of joe or a brew and cruise
through the ramblings of the past"
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