Thursday, December 31, 2009

Last day of the Year.

Well it is the dawn of the last day of the year.

Have party to go to... Check!
Have many big boxes of Fire works .... Check!
Have large bottle of Rum .... Check!
Have camera ready to go .... Check!

Well see you next year!

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

80k up in smoke and something weird..

Well just went and bought fireworks :) < please note this grin does not come close to the size of the real one!

I bough a bunch of fireworks for new years at work.... and some fire crackers and stuff :)

The something weird is I was laying in bead last night trying to sleep when I noticed my light on the ceiling flickering.

This is odd since the light was off.

At first I thought it was catching the light from the search beacon on top of the Perlan but then realized the light flicker didn't match the light patch on the wall from the search light...

Well I think I have figured it out. I have a compact florescence bulb in the light and I think it was flickering from the RF signal from the airport beacon. Most airports have a radio beacon the planes can use to triangulate there position. The beacons have a pulse at a regular interval so you can identify each station.

I figure as i am close to the airport the radio beacon is powering my light briefly. :) Mystery solved, I think!

Monday, December 28, 2009

morning lols.

pizza

got this from here and i found it funny.

the cool thing is the formula is correct.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Merry Loot Day, umm a day late

Well merry Loot day. Hopefully the Jolly fat man with the red suit brought you all you desired, and if not that all that you need.

:)

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Almost the Great Loot day.

Well x-mass is almost on us, this year the great loot day is looking kinda sparse :(

I have gifts from family and work of course, but I have been using my gift to my self for a month or so now. 160GB SSD drive for my computer.

Anyway sorry for the long laps in posts, but between work and other things I haven't felt like writing in a while. I will try to be better in the new year.

In any case have a Merry Loot Day, and a Happy New Year. :P

ps. I will post pictures of the fireworks again this year.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Winter muesings

Well the snow has fallen, the thermometer has fallen and the wind has risen, guess two out of 3 isn't bad.

We got snow the other day, and -15c temps, and the wind picked up, one of the blogs I read called it Windkill :) aptly appropriate don't you think.

But alas it all washed away last night and the temp is on the rise again. We are down to a few hours of daylight again and the days are starting to blend together.

But the release went well and we are in hotfix and patch mode. Starting to plan the next release and getting the bug counts down.


that is all for me, and sry it has been so long.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

well the cursed windows 7 is installed

It is up and running, a little less stable that the Linux install, but less hassles to get things running.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

offline for a bit

I have broken down and bought a copy of windows 7. So i will be off-line for a bit while i reinstall the os.
See you all in a bit, if you need to email me, that will go to my phone.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

We had a bit of a blow up.

Had a Huge wind storm here last night, One that puts what Karen experienced to shame. I heard that wind speeds out over the ocean was in excess of 50m/s in Reykjavik we had 30-40 m/s winds and light rain.

Light, lol, at those wind speed light rain HURTS!

In other news some of the GM's at work did a video. There is some strong language but it is hilarious, especially if you play games and get some of the inside jokes.



Anyhow it is cool, and well done. If you don't get a joke, or comment drop me a comment and i will try to explain the situation.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Oh to be a ambasador

Went to the Canadian embassy yesterday and guess what, they are open between 9:00 am and noon. Wow I would like to have a 3 hour work day to, The cost pinching part of me hopes the ambassador is on a hourly wage. The realist thinks he probably has a lot of social duties outside of work hours.

sigh, summer gone

We had snow on the ground this morning, so summer is officially over :(

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Round, and Round you go and where you stop is where you started.

I spent a good part of the day processing photos and getting them uploaded.

The trip was amazing in that we had some good weather, some blaa weather and a day of full on extreme Icelandic weather.

Should back up, for those that don't know my friend Karen came for a visit from Canada and we rented a Jeep and drove around Iceland. We had 8 days on the road and saw allot of cool things.

The day of extreme weather was the last day.. Karen has a photo of a waterfall not making it to the ground. The wind was blowing so hard that the waterfall was getting broken up into mist and becoming rain. It was not a small waterfall either, and it is a neat photo of the waterfall cresting the edge and falling about halfway down before dissolving into mist in the wind.

I don't have a photo of it, I was busy trying to keep the car on the road in high winds and sideways rain. I also said I would not post her photos until she has posted them.

There was several place before that I found interesting, the drive into to lanmanalaoiger(sp!) was cool. We where fording rivers in the Jeep and that was neat. and again no photos of us ploughing through rivers, we where in the car.

Another place we stopped was near the big glacier where there is arm of ice is breaking up and flowing into the ocean. There was chunks of ice the size of buses, and the current was strong enough to stop the tied and make the waves break offshore.

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Another cool place was Vik we had a nice sunset behind the bluff, and a nice walk down the beach.
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We drove back into a small town and saw a couple of neat waterfalls and Iceland's biggest canyon.
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The road was 50km of bad washboard and huge potholes, like the size that you drove around for fear of losing your vehicle in one.

On the way back to route 1 we passed through this little town that was just gorgeous. It was a picture perfect location and Iceland's capital of wale watching (on the north east cost)

We had lunch in this small restaurant on the docks, the food was great and the view out the windows was like in the movies. Didn't have my camera with me for lunch but got this photo after. The restaurant is one of the roofs in the bottom of the photo.

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So that was the trip and it is back to work tomorrow :( I will let you know where, and when Karen posts her photos.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Borganess and the last night

Yesterday we drove to acurari (sp!) And spent the night. It is named for corn and coast so the town roughly translates to corn coast.

Tonight we are staying in borganess and tomorrow heading up the penisula and back to Reykjavik.

Trip is almost over.

PS: get well soon kathy!

Friday, September 11, 2009

Oh the pain!

Karen made me hike here! She said it is only 1.5km there.

BUT IT ID ALL UP HILL!!!!!

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Trip to Hofn

Well we set out this morning to drive to Hofn, and we got there with lots of time to spare!

Along the way we came to a spot where the glacier is calfing off chunks of ice. That than flowed down the river that is created by then melting ice. Then when the tides goes out you end up with large ice cubes stranded on the beach.

Photos when I download the camera

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

In Vik

We stopped at the water falls along the way to vik, checked into the hotel and then went back to vik for dinner. We went to the place where mom really liked the lamb soup. We had the marinated lamb chops.

Mmmmmm

At the golden water fall

We have been to thinker and geyser.

Now at the water fall and karen thinks I am taking to many photos

Monday, September 7, 2009

Prune simulation

So we did the blue lagoon and we are distinctly prune like!

Next is the mall as Karen left her sun glasses on thee t*blue in Edmonton.

This evening we met Devon & Kate and Diana and Kenny for dinner and this great little Indian restaurant. Dinner was GREAT! and only 34k :)

We then went back to there place and played a game called Apples vs Apples. It works like this, you have green apples cards and red apple cards. Everyone starts with 7 red apple cards and whose ever turn it is turns over a Green apple card. The cards all have words so for Instance if the green card was the word Rich. Then each player looks at there hand of cards and picks the card with the word or phrase that best goes with the card and tosses it into the middle. For isnatance there was cards tossed in like cheesecake., and monopoly, movie starts,... and the peron whose turn it was picks that red apple card that best goes with the green apple card. In this case it was Rich Cheescake. so the person who tossed in Cheesecake gets the green apple card.


The goal is to get 6 green apples to win (if playing 6 person game)

Alltold it was a good night, and Karen loved Diana's coffee.



The arival of Karen.

Alarm goes off at 03:30 , what does the 0 stand for, "Oh my god it is early".

Yes i got up at 3:30 am and then drove out to the airport after the shower, breakfast...

In case you are wondering I did leave a bit of extra time in case... as a result i sat for about 45min, I could have slept in more, Then it took almost a half hout for Karen to get her lugage and wander past customs.

For the record Karens flight landed at 6:20 am and the sun rose at 6:25AM so she beat the sun here.

We then headed to my place in Reykjavik and fed her breakfast. Dumped the luggage and headed out for a walk, took her along the cost from the Viking ship down to the sea wal near work. Karen's comment was "Is it possible to take a bad picture here?"

Stopped at work and gave her a tour, and then had hot choclate in the lunch room.
Wandered a little more than caught a cab back to my place.

Sat around for a little while, then we took the car and drove up to the Perlan and had lunch and looked over the city, then we drove over to the beach and had a wander. Last we drove out to the light house and wandered along the beach for a bit.

Then it was time to head home and make supper, made spagetii for Karen, willem, and Roary (sp?).

It is now the morning of the next day and sleep head is still sleeping...
Today the plan is to go tot he blue lagoon and to pack :)

Tommorow will be on the road.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Travel e-zine

Well my photo was selected, you can see the guide here.

My first published photo... :)

Friday, August 28, 2009

The grand trip, ccp style

The next grand trip has been announced.

Puerto Vallarta for 4 nights of partying :)

So I will be in Mexico for April 28 to May 2

Woot!

Friday, August 21, 2009

O.o hmm that is intresting

It appears that one of my photos has been short listed for inclusion in a travel map.

IMG_1476

The tourist map is a free publication, and is within my share and accredit usage.

Will find out early sept if it will be used.

The funny thing is of all the pictures of Venice I took,the pick the one of the garbage scow :)

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Flying higher than a kite...

Well yes I was higher than a kite, but not really that high.
IMG_3217

Dr. Eyjog was going flying this weekend, so I went with him. :) It was overcast to the south, so we flew north west for about a hour and a half.

IMG_3220
This is a picture of work, form a different point of view :P Kind of like this view of work a posed from the inside.

We flew north from Reykjavik up along the Fjord that the allies used to park convoys in during WWII.

From there we flew north into the highlands and around some mountains, the cloud cover was at just the right level that you could not see the glaciers. Well you could see them but it was white ice with white clouds above them, so couldn't really see them.

Then on the way back we followed a glacier fed river and a fresh water river. Where they both enter the ocean it is a interesting mix of silt filled water, fresh water, and salt water.
IMG_3242
IMG_3245
Then it was back to Reykjavik.
IMG_3249
IMG_3252

On the way back we flew past some land makes and places of interest. The first was the swiming pool that my parents and I went to when they visited.
IMG_3254
On the way into to land we passed the Perlan.

You can see the runway that we landed at on the far left of the picture.
IMG_3256

Saturday, August 8, 2009

A visit from the past.

We have a visitor from the past here in Iceland.
Sailing ship
A Russian sailing ship has come to port. It was built in 1926 by Germany and then handed over to Russia as war reparations.

IMG_3193

Anyway it is kind of neat to see this old lady still sailing.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Trip planning

Hmmm trip planning.

Karen and I have decided what we are doing when she visits. So far it involves doing stuff.

The plan:

We are going to rent a 4x4 and drive around Iceland. we will have about 8 day of travel time to see things and with a 4x4 we will be able to head off onto F class roads.

Class F roads are a dirt tracks, that will most likely involve crossing streams. So it will be neat to go anywhere in the back country.

Other than that we don't have much of a plan yet, but it is coming along.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Home again :(

Well i am home, flew in last Sunday on the 6:50 AM plane. Had most of Sunday to try and recover from a lack of sleep. I had a nap until noon, then went biking, I figured that if I fell asleep while biking the fall would wake me up :)

Sunday was the most gourgous day i have seen in iceland for a while, and has still been nice. I guess I dragged the rain to Alberta and the sun back here, both needed the other. :)

Other than that back into work, and I have the photos downloaded but not processed yet.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Grans birthday

My ran mother had her 98th birthday party on the first.

It was a good time, my mom invited 26 but only 23 showed.

All told there was enought left overs to feed Iceland for a week. :)

Off with Karen for the week end, we are driving down to Banff through jasper and spent the first night in lake louise(sp?). And the hiked. Up to the tea house. My poor sore feet!

More later

Thursday, June 25, 2009

almost time to fly.

I can't wait for Saturday, flying back to visit friends and family :) Also have a bunch of shoping to do, been getting orders from people to bring things from Canada.. I think my suitcase is going to be loaded with chocolate and goodies on the way back.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Summer

It ius finally feeling allot like summer, IE I can't sleep cause it is bright out side from 3:00 am to 11:56 pm.

I have found there is slight down side to this, when you want good pictures with really nice sky's in them you need a hour or so around sunset and sunrise.

So not allot of nice photos lately.

Other than that I am starting to get excited about going back to Canada for a visit. but strangely enough all I am thinking about is all the foods that i can't get here that I love. I am almost to the point of looking into a Purdies choclate franchise just to import hedgehogs to Iceland :)

Well I am going to enjoy the weekend, hoping for no rain and lots of biking opportunity :)

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

They are Done!

Ok got the last photos processed and uploaded. These include the Vatican, and fountains, and the coliseum. All in Rome!

Now to wright a email to everyone on the tour :)

And to write the trip report, hard to believe it was a month ago now :(

On the other hand we have has some of the most beautiful days here. So far from Saturday to now we have had 15c+ days and clear blue sky's. Been out biking again as I got the winter tires changed off and it is so east to pedal again. and we are getting close to 19hours of daylight right now. So there is a lot of nice Day.

YAAA Summer is here.


On another topic, check this out. This is like google, but searches computable data. For instance if you search for sunrise it will figure out where you are int he world and then figure out what time sunrise was and sunset and other related information. If you enter math formulas it will solve the formulas and display the results.

It is kinda cool.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

PICTURES

well only one day of photos to filter, process, and upload till I have all of the Italy trip done, put up 2 more days tonight.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

sorry

Joined a new raiding guild in wow, and they raid hard, Fri, Sat, Sun, and Mon nights. But the times are good, they start about 6:300 and end by 10:00 my time. But it has not left allot of time to edit photos.

But I give you the smart Police...
smart police
... Car. :)

Hopefully I will get another days worth done tonight.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

first set of photos,

They are in no order yet, but the first set of Italy is up

Friday, April 10, 2009

Touchdown!

landed and unpacking gifts...

Home

The heart is warm.
The feet sore.
Time to go home.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Vatican and the rocks

This morning we did a tour of the vatican museum. We where supposed to see st. Peters cathedral, but the pope was washing some feet :)

So we didn't get to go in :(

In the after noon we did a fountains and squares walk. This was nice and we saw a lot of things.

Then afterwards chris and kenna and I went and saw the coliseum, big pile of old rocks :)

Also looked a bit at the form and walked to the monument that. Celebrates the unification of italy.

Fly home tomorrow and will start getting photos up and post better trip reports

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Dinner at the three pines

We are having a group dinner. It is traditional Italian dinner.

They just brought in the flaming bore

David

Nuff said

Monday, April 6, 2009

Kenna the princess

So today we rode the buss and saw the mountains of Tuscanay. Was beautiful!

We stopped at a vineyard for lunch and I bought a bottle of wine.

Then onto the tower at Pisa and boy is. it falling over. Had to hold it up :)

We are now in florence and I am hanging out with kenna the princess, chris, and jerry.


Off to florence

Well this is jerry and we are off to florence. Via Pisa on a 3 hour bus ride.


Sunday, April 5, 2009

Stairs, oh god the stairs!

Aka day 2

Ee started out with a tour of the Moreno glass works. This is were the famous italy glass is hand made. We saw a glass master make the glass by hand. It was hot!

Next we went to st. Marco square and did a tour of the Doge palace.

The would not allow photo on the inside :(

Next up was a gondola ride after lunch. I was with monica, Lori, and Tiffany. It was a nice hour ride with a bottle of bubbly wine.

Next I linked up with jerry, Mckennan and kenna's mom. had breakfast with them.

So after the ride we wandered. Saw many neat shops and I ended up bribing mckenna with chocolate to get her the rest of the way back to the hotel.

So now I am eating a nice penne and chicken dinner at Ginos

Tommowow we head to Florence :)

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Day -1 and 1, hmm maybe it should be day zero

Well spent the day wandering around went back to the plaza of Marco Polo. and paid to go up the tower. also paid to go up the tower and have some nice pictures of the city from on high.

then wandered back taking numerous wrong turns. a street should not be that gap between two walls that is narrower than I am :(

saw a couple of churches, but they don't let photos.

anyway going to sit around for the after noon and read by the canal. got a not from the tour guide that we will meet at 6:00 pm for our orientation session.

well only 10 min left on the the computer, want to check news and sites...

Friday, April 3, 2009

Ok enough of the cryptic posts

I booked a week in italy :)

I have a night here in venice before the tour gets here, they are fly from new york so while is was walking around they are flying here.

So all told I will have 3 nights in venice.
Then I think we take a bus to pizza.

Stop for lunch I think. Then on to florence for two nights.

Then we bus down to rome for two nights and then I fly home.

Limited to my BB so I won't get comments unless you email me directly.

So far I have walked a ways to see the Piazza s. Marco.

It was getting dark by the time I got there and was full dark on the walk back. It is hard finding you way through streets that I can almost touch both sides. Only had to ask directions 3 times and got off course once.

Right now having dinner in the hotel and there is a live piano player that is fairly good.

Ta from Italy :)


Hmmm

Well this is interesting, this plane went to Venice, Italy

I think I will look around a bit :)

Hmmm....

Hmm this plane went to Frankfurt, Germany. I wonder where this plane goes?

Hmmm

Hmm this bus went to the airport, wonder where this plane goes.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Hmmm

The urge to see things...
The feet are restless...
The heart wants some place warm ...
The mind agrees...

Hmm wonder where that bus goes...

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

... spring cont.

The honking of the geese
The trumpets of the swans
The Qvak of the ducks
The chirping of the birds
The last flurry of snow from a fading winter.

The heart wants some place warm ...

IMG_Sunset down the Hill1247

Friday, March 27, 2009

... Spring cont.

The warmth of the sun on your skin.
The bite of winters grasp not quite released.
The hint of green below the brown grass.
The valiant shoots thrusting up.
A shiver from a dyeing winters rattle.

The feet are restless...

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Spring

The smell of the frost in the morning.
The glow of the sun in the morning.
The straining shoots.
The popping of the bud.
The waking of the world after a winters slumber.

The urge to see things...

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

A million monkeys with typewriters

Well we have tried that and blogspot.com is nothing like Shakespeare!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

First post from Kubuntu

I have made the Jump. Windows has been exorcized from my computer.

It was very easy to get it installed, Although it is not seeing my raid yet so it is only installed on one drive.

Wow is up and running, need to figure out how to make a script to do what i need to do to run it. But it works.

Later today I will get Skype installed and IM, then the photo software.

The reason for Jumping ship was i had Windows 7 beta installed. In the fine print on the disk it said you had to register within 30d or it would invalidate. I didn't see this and windows didn't prompt for it.

Well the other day the 30d was up. Windows then deactivates the neat visual features of windows, and ALL your network adapters! so even if i wanted to register it on-line I could not! Well that was the last straw and windows is gone foreever!

Monday, February 23, 2009

The top secret stuff.

Sorry it has been so long since posted last, to the point that some people wondered if I had fallen off the world.

There have been a couple things that have held me up from posting, none of them good.

A) Haven't felt like posting, been mostly just doing the same old same old.
B) Got new guts for my computer and had it torn apart for a few days. Been trying out the beta for Windows 7 More on it below.
C) Haven't felt like editing photos so there isn't any new ones yet, also have to reinstall the software.
D) Very busy at work, some late nights the last few weeks.


The new computer is a 3ghz quad core Intel I7, 6gb of ram, and my 3 drive raid zero. hard drive. Nividia 280 video card with 1gb of ram. For those whose eyes just glaze over I will translate. It is fast, can do 4 things at once, and has more memory than I do.

Windows 7 is a improvement to vista, but nothing to be excited over if you didn't see a reason to get vista, you really don't have a reason to get windows 7 when it comes out, and the full OS will be about 450$ Canadian.

So as a result before the Beta expires I will be installing Linux and moving away from Windows.

I have been researching what Wine can do and am very impressed, Wine is the windows emulation for Linux and just recently had it's first 1.0 release.

This includes 95% support for direct X 9.0b games. And the game i am playing at the moment run under it quite well. Next I will be looking into how the book reader software and Photo editing tools work under Linux.

So that is what I have been up to in the last few weeks.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Review of Cory Doctorow book Little Brother.


I don't usually review books but Cory Doctorow's Little Brother I really liked, and as most of you know I don't buy many physical books anymore.

Little brother is about a terrorist incidence in San Fransisco, and the department of homeland security moves in afterwords and turns the city into a virtual police state.

The main character is 17 years old and fights back by using the internet and starting a popular movement to regain there freedoms.

The reason i like the book is that that it has a good story for what it is and the book touches on a lot of the myths dealing with security and the restrictive laws that have been passed in many country's in the name of protecting us from terrorists.

There has been no terrorists caught yet using any of these measures but hundreds of thousands of people have been inconvenienced and harassed all for the illusion of security.

One of the first points that the author makes is that the job of terrorists is not to kill people, it is to instill terror. And if they can do one horrendous thing and then sit back for years while we do the work for them. So none of these terrorist prevention measures are ever going to work. This is because the terrorists have done what they needed and have left.

They don't need to do anything more, we are doing it for them!

The author points out that a security system is only as good as the people that try to break it. Any one can build a security system that they can't break, that doesn't mean that someone smarter, luckier, or clever can't figure out how to break it. So in the end the only security that works is one that is open for everyone to examine and critique.

The the current restrictions are wrapped in so many layers of secrecy that it is impossible to know how badly flawed there measures are.

Anyway it is a good book.

If you want something that everyone takes for granted that is secure then take a look at this video.
Lock Bumping

This is a very simple technique that can bypass 80% of the key locks out there. It take a few minuets with a file and a key that fits into the lock in question.

It was people that view security as something that is only as good as the people that have tried to break it. In this case people assumed that a key lock is secure, mostly because we have seen hundreds of Ads in our lives that have told us so. Then someone looks at the problem from a different angle and Bing it isn't as secure as it was.

Anyway pickup a copy and enjoy the book, in a way it will be a eye opener about a lot of laws that are being passed under the heading of making us safer.

At what point is the counter measure worse than the problem.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Not much New

well not much new since New Years. We have been hard at work at work.

We started a fitness week, and the ladies have been cooking healthy food. For healthy food it sure tastes gross. Nut steaks are not something you want to know about..... So some of us have been doing the Unhealthy lunches. But I have been trying to pick more healthy foods.

I have been trying to eat healthier and exercise more.

Today was boiled halabout fiskur.

Other than that it has been a slow time. The snow came, the rain came, the snow left... the usaual.

I know this is kinda lame blog entry but oh well...

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Wow , Just WOW!

The fireworks where amazing.. I have never seen anything like that before.

Words and pictures don't do it justice. But what poor little photos I took are now up on flicker.

The fire works started about 8:00, well there had been fireworks going off sporadically for the last 2 days. but about 8:00 they had started to become more of a constant thing. By 9:30 - 10:00 there was almost a continues stream of fireworks going up.

About 11:00 they really started to pick up, and you could see all the way across the bay to the other shore and the fireworks being launched there.

At 12:00 they went nuts, there was no longer pauses between firework launches it was a continuous stream of fireworks.

I have allot of picture, most aren't fit for viewing, two things conspired against me, A I focused the camera on downtown, the locked the focus, auto focus does not work because by the time the camera has finished focusing the firework is gone. B there was enough wind to cause some shake in the camera on the try pod.

Edit: found this video

But I did find 54 shots that show some of the experience of last night. Video would have been better!

But all told the fireworks would be worth the plane ticket to come and see it.


Iceland also has it's version of the Royal Canadian Air Farce! It is all in Icelandic, but was still a hoot to watch (it was a half hour and during that time the fireworks almost stopped) .

There was this reoccurring theme of a polar bear getting shot. and in one sketch the polar bear wanders into a protest. It gets shot then the police pepper spray it. :)

The rest of the show was on the banks... didn't understand most of it.

Well that is my report on New Years..

Hope this next year will be as good as the last.