I didn’t see this coming at all. With the addition of Manny Malhotra, I figured the Canucks had all kinds of third-line options, so adding another third-liner sounded redundant. But despite that, I really like this move, once I sit back and think about it. For $1 million, Torres is a pretty good deal. He can put up 40 points in the right circumstances, he’s a penalty-killer, and he adds an edge and some grit to go with the likes of Kesler and Burrows.

Since it sounds like Burrows won’t be around to start the season because of some kind of injury, Torres may also get the opportunity for some second-line minutes. It would be great if he stepped up to the challenge and gave coach Vigneault some hard choices to make re: the second and third lines.

The consequences of this signing for our younger players and prospects is that they’re going to have to do a lot more to prove themselves. Cody Hodgson is not guaranteed a roster spot, though I hope he gets plenty of opportunities to pick up the third-line centre position, with Malhotra maybe helping on faceoffs. I think Jordan Schroeder is going to be in Manitoba and will be an injury call-up. Sergei Shirokov will have to be outstanding and make a lot of improvements to get a real shot at a roster spot. I’m not optimistic about him panning out, but I’d love to be surprised. At the very least, it would open up some trade possibilities with him or some other prospects, or maybe trading a veteran player or two to give the prospects some room. I’d be surprised to see Cory Schneider stick around all year with the amount of money he’s making, but that also depends on whether he plays well enough to be worth anything on the trade market.

All in all, I’m more excited about this season than I have been for any other Canucks season. I can’t think of a single area of weakness, on paper at least. But you still have to play the games, and I can’t wait for them to start!

The best moment was probably when one of the whales breached (i.e. leapt several feet out of the water) just behind our boat. It was maybe 20 or 30 feet away from me! Very cool.

The guide was a pretty entertaining guy. He had a lot of information to share and a dry, sarcastic way of presenting it that I enjoyed, though it was a touch abrasive, and I think most people missed some of his dryer jokes. (A few times I think I was the only person chuckling, but he’s probably used to that.)

The biggest thing I learned was that some female killer whales can live to be over 100 years old! We were following one, whose name was Granny, who was apparently born around 1911. We also got to visit with her son, Ruffles, who was in his 80s, I think.

I don’t have any of the pictures, since we didn’t use my camera, but I may have a few to share at some point.

I enjoyed the book overall, though I wouldn’t say it was his strongest. It focussed more on low-level events and characters, rather than overarching plots and events, which was kind of neat, and somewhat similar to Patriot Games.

Some of the stuff that happens in the book doesn’t quite make sense, and seem a bit convenient, rather than character-driven. This is especially true in the first couple chapters and the last couple chapters. But it’s worth overlooking those things to get at the themes and morality questions that are involved.

One thing that did really strike me about Without Remorse is that it could be adapted into a really great movie, in my opinion. So just now I did a search for it, and lookie here. Could be interesting, if it happens!

I’d recommend reading the book, but you should read the books that were written earlier first, probably.

It took me three days to beat the campaign on Hard, and I just finished my placement matches for 1v1 online, going 4-1 and ending up in a Gold league. I expect to get bumped down to a Silver league before too long.

The campaign was excellent. It helps to know that they’re planning to release two more campaigns–one for Protoss and one for Zerg–so that I didn’t expect any kind of major resolution at the end of this game. The story was pretty good; the characters were strong, though they definitely play up the whole “space cowboy” atmosphere a lot and riff on tough guy stereotypes. It’s obvious they were going for a B-movie sci-fi feel, and they pull it off well, even if it’s fairly over the top at some points.

The pre-rendered cutscenes are up to Blizzard’s usual level of quality, and I love how much work they put into all the little conversations you can have with the various people on your ship between missions, as well as all the upgrade and research trees for army customization. It really fleshes the campaign out and makes it feel more full and immersive. The missions themselves are really varied; I can’t remember a single mission that involved just building a base and killing all the enemies, not without a significant twist, at least.

I highly recommend you go out and get yourself a copy and play through it. I played on Hard and found the last few missions somewhat challenging, but if you don’t have that much RTS experience there are Normal and Casual settings, too, so you should be able to make your way through it.

Leave a comment if you want to play online sometime.

When you combine “related fields” with “collectible”, you get something like the two old books I picked up at my favourite used-book store:

The Positive School of Criminology, by Enrico Ferri, was published in 1906, and the version I have was printed in 1913. It’s based on some lectures the author gave at an Italian university in 1901. Criminology is an offshoot of sociology which deals with crime and law, and I’m really excited to see how an early criminologist thought.

The Collapse of Capitalism, by Herman Cahn, was printed in 1918 and deals with capitalism and American socialism, from what I can tell so far. Old-timey social theory is always interesting. It’ll be fun to see how many of the author’s references to Marx and Engels I recognize; I’ve read a decent amount of Marx in my own studies.

Along with these two academic/theory collectibles, I grabbed a couple of spy action novels (a Clancy book I didn’t have yet, along with The Janson Directive by Robert Ludlum), so we’ll see if and when I get to those.

Which of these two old books should I read first?

The last shot is really good, and it does something I really love thematically, which is open up interpretation to the viewers and let them decide something important for themselves.

As I think about the movie more, a few things start to come up that don’t entirely make sense, or that seem a bit contrived. The movie isn’t perfect, but it’s still very good.

I can’t say too much more without spoiling things, and this is a movie that doesn’t deserve to be spoiled, so I’ll just leave it at that.

I highly recommend seeing it!

I don’t really want to talk about it. : (

It’s nice to have warm weather so I can break out my shorts and get a tan and whatnot, but to be honest, I prefer temperatures in the high teens or low twenties. Give me overcast with a light wind, jeans-and-t-shirt weather.

What I should really do is take advantage of the heat and go swimming somewhere or something. Who’s interested?

P.S. I saw a Tom Clancy novel I didn’t have yet at a thrift store today for twenty-five cents, so that pretty much made my day.

That’s two Discworld novels (I’m still missing a few from my set) and one of the Enderverse novellas from Orson Scott Card.

Terry Pratchett and OSC are two of the few authors whose works I actually collect and whose books I tend to buy new instead of used. I’ve been collecting Tom Clancy lately, but buying used on that front. Used books are the way to go, in general, I find, but there’s something about having a long row of shiny, colour-coordinated covers spanning a shelf that makes my heart warm.

Plus there’s that new-book smell.