Bill Gates gone or it’s time for the St-Jean-Baptiste

Bill gates announced that he will be leaving day to day operations of M$ to head up his charity and philanthropy work. This comes a mere week after Robert Scoble left M$ as well. Noticing something of a trend? In this post, I cover the Fête de la St-Jean-Baptiste, photography, the Montreal Grand Prix, moblogging, blogging, robots and more!

I haven’t started writing about Mr Bush yet. I don’t know if I will. I might just broach the subject in a broader sense. We will see.

 

It’s a very hot Thursday here in Montreal. I am about to leave for Quebec City for the St-Jean-Baptiste Day celebrations. Each year, there are free concert, drinking and partying on the night of the St-Jean. In Quebec City, festivities are on the Plaines d’Abraham. In Montreal, concerts and the fête are on the 24^th of June. In Quebec, it’s on the 23^rd of June. A dedicated celebrant could probably make it to both, but most people are too messed up to drive or be driven anywhere. I don’t drink, but I do enjoy the time. It’s the perfect opportunity to catch up with friends that you haven’t seen in a while. My friends always gather in the same place on the Plaines and I spend most of the night there. Recently, I have been leaving earlier. Last year, I left at 01:00 AM, walked back to my car, which was far away. Parking is murder within the walled city during this time and because of this, I always keep my car far away. This will be the 2^nd time I bring a digital camera. Since I have been going nutty for night photography, I will be taking a lot of shots.

 

This is wikipedia’s entry on the St-Jean-Baptiste

This is the official web site of the fête

I have made a few changes to the blog, including a custom header that is comprised of two of my photos. Tell me what you think, is it too dark? I have also updated most of the static pages to reflect the direction of the blog.

 

The Memoirs On A Rainy day have been in the top 100 blogs of WP since the last week. I have been updating and modifying my blogroll to include interesting blogs that have linked here. I am happy to say that Char from Chartreuse (ß) has added me to his blogroll. Thanks!

 

Here is an interesting comment I made on Mr Angry’s blog about blogging.

On the identity with which you blog and the inherent dangers of revealing too much online.

 

I have debated about this with myself a number of times. I censor myself, I don’t get too personal with some details, I’ve edited my profiles not to reveal too much information, but in the end, my photo is on my blog.

 

I guess most of us would like to be able to quit our day jobs and blog as a career or partly at least. Since I have my own company, I don’t mind this, but if I ever get back into a corp world, I guess I would censor myself even more. I don’t blog about clients or work really. I try to use the blog as a way to express a side of myself that I have laid to rest for a few years.

 

I would hate to get dooced, and I believe Mr Angry, you wouldn’t want to either. So keep on the mask, change your name and enter a pseudonym on technorati and make sure that you can keep working.

 

Some of my close friends are aware that I blog, but I haven’t told a whole lot of people. I think I will, because I try to keep a modicum of respect, however, if anyone really wants to track my comments and such, there can be questionable ones found.

 

I try to google myself from time to time to see if anything pops up. Until now, I have had no problems, because I use my pseudonym or nickname at all times. But as always, if someone really wants to find out who I am they can.

 

Onto another random thought, I will be traveling until Sunday and I am not looking forward to moblogging with my cell phone. I hate typing with numeric keypads; it’s so slow and annoying.

 

Its the Grand Prix of Montreal and I will be there, courtesy of an company I have ties to. And, it’s the Fete de la St-Jean-Baptiste, Quebec’s state wide holiday. I will be taking a lot of pictures in the next few days.

 

I enjoyed my article on robots and I am planning to do a series of articles on this subject. I will try to keep them separate from other subjects or make clear markings, like I did in my previous post, when talking about this. I have been into robots and robotic theory for a while, mostly through my exposure to science-fiction novels. Two novels I still have to talk about are Ilium and Olympos by Dan Simmons, probably the most interesting science-fiction novels of the last few years. I have to say that Alastair Reynolds books are pretty darn good too. But Dan Simmons work on these two novels is epic. For this, I will read them again over the next few days to be sure to not talk out of my ass. I was able to talk clearly and without too many errors about Isaac Asimov’s books and Frank Herbert’s books since I have read them time and time again over the years, since I was a teenager. I would say that I read the Foundation series every five years and Dune every three years. I have only read Dan Simmons two books 2 or 3 times.

 

Yes I can see you coming, I read fast. This comes from my mother, who is a writer and a voracious reader, she reads even faster than me. And reading costs a lot of money. And maybe it doesn’t. Each time I go to Chapter’s or Indigo Books, I spend a few hundred dollars. At least, I only go once every 6 months or so. I have tried the library, however I felt like I was pressured to read the books in a certain timeframe and I didn’t like that. There is also the subject of late fees, I still have C12$ in unpaid late fees. I have tried ebooks and I do read some, but I don’t like it that much. I rather read a physical book.

 

I think story blogs or blogs from writers are very interesting. They use this new medium in a surprising way. I’ve just discovered a few on WP. Das Buch der ziellosen Kreation is Loki’s blog is the latest that I’ve read. Sweet Immolation and Crimethoughts in the Interzone are the others. I’ve read a bit about Yourstory. I think all writers and aspiring writers should seriously consider blogging. It may lead to a book deal. It may not. Some bloggers have written books. Some haven’t. It can also help you focus and concentrate your efforts by getting an immediate response from your readers.

 

I’ve also taken photos for the last few days, I’m just checking if there are any that are worthwhile. I learnt this from my wife, it’s better to take 100 pictures and find 1 or 2 that are great than to take 5 and find out that all are crappy. This is why I take loads of pictures. As you’ve seen, I have found a few that are ok. Most of these are from my mouse. I got tired last year and upgraded to a laser mouse. The best thing about this is the customizable buttons. I have delete, copy, paste, cut and close window functions mapped onto these buttons. If I don’t write with the keyboard, I use the mouse almost exclusively. It has reduced the movements necessary for browsing. I don’t know if this is a good thing or bad. You get some aches and pains from working in front of a computer for long periods of time. I used to go to the gym daily in the beginning of the year, I stopped about a month and a half ago. I should start again. I enjoy a good run.

 

I’ve discovered a lot of good and great photographers and photos on flickr. konaboy and spoinknet are the latest.

 

 

This post started out as a few words and ended up being a bit more than a thousand. I was only sitting down to write a short post, but continued writing. That is interesting. I wonder how many words I will be able to write with my cellphone during Friday and Saturday.

 

 

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