Jason Montgomery's Blog

We arranged with Telus to upgrade our DSL service. The switch will happen tomorrow, and they said we will get 6 Mb/s. That's gotta be better than this:

And now, the addition to the prior list of movies and TV shows I never would have normally seen if it were not for Mike Nelson's RiffTrax (not counting tracks that are not out yet and short films):

• House of Wax (Yes, the Paris Hilton "version.")
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
• Memento
• Ocean's Eleven (George Clooney's remake.)
• The Day After Tomorrow
• Dirty Dancing
• The Happening
• The Incredible Hulk: Final Round (One episode of the old TV show.)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Little Shop of Horrors (Roger Corman's version.)
• House on Haunted Hill (Vincent Price's version.)
• Jaws
• Carnival of Souls
• The Three Stooges: Swing Parade
• Die Hard
• Twilight
• Planet of Dinosaurs
• Casablanca
• Voodoo Man
• The Room
• Ghost

Now that's a lot of mostly crap.

Like everybody else in the cult, I read everything I could about Apple's announcements yesterday at WWDC, especially the new iPhone 3G S. Sounds neat, but I'm sticking with my Nokia, and I definitely won't be slapping down seven hundred bones on its new big brother.

But here's something I noticed today: a lot of news stories are spelling the name "iPhone 3GS" without the space, and that fired up some of my long-dormant dendrites.

Back when I was in elementary school, they had an Apple IIGS computer that only the teachers were allowed to use. The GS in the name stood for Graphics and Sound because of its enhanced capabilities in those areas, like MIDI functionality.

Now The Beatles' management company, Apple Corps, didn't like this. They accused Apple Computer of entering the music business and honing in on their turf. You can read the details here, but everything was finally patched up two years ago.

Now then, back to the new iPhone "3GS". I know the "3G" stands for third generation high-speed cellular data networks and the "S" stands for "Speed." "3GS" doesn't mean "third-generation iPhone for Graphics and Sound."

Does this misspelling by the journalists imply that Apple is once again gunning for The Beatles' turf? Sure, you can make music on an iPhone, and a recent cover for The New Yorker was made on a iPhone. But they'd better get Steve Jobs back so he can put a style guide for reporters in the media kit to prevent history repeating itself.

I'm Jason Montgomery, and I'm Always Right(tm).

Okay, with this fan-made fake trailer going around, and even making the National Post, now would be a good time to talk about this. And I've got time to kill before Jay Leno's final Tonight Show.

I've watched it about a dozen times and still gives me chills. And it's partly because that I've recently discovered the Green Lantern comics from DC.

I've heard lots of good things about the current run of Green Lantern and its sister book Green Lantern Corps, so I picked up the free "Blackest Night" book for Free Comic Book Day at my usual haunt. And I liked what I saw. So much in fact, I've been tracking down the trades of back issues so that I'm caught up in the story before "Blackest Night" begins this summer. You only have to check out the books I've read for proof of that.

Now I've always considered myself a True Believer, or rather a Latter-Day Ultimist. But since that little corner of comicdom is now in the end of days, it was time for something new. Even though I haven't read the Green Lantern books until now, I've always kind of been intrigued by the characters; patrolling the Universe as space cops with a ring powered by their force of will. So I think these books are now on my pull list.

But as I mentioned earlier, I'm also a late night talk show viewer, and that is leaking into my newfound discovery. For when I hear the name "John Stewart", I don't think of this guy:

I think of this guy:

So here's my fanficcy open proposal. If anybody from DC Comics or the Daily Show are reading these words, feel free to use my idea. The CC license is below, so just stick my name in the credits under "Based On A Concept By" and we'll call it square.

"DC Comics Elseworlds: The Daily Show with Green Lantern"

Basic concept: Abin Sur's power ring picks Jon Stewart instead of Hal Jordan to become the Green Lantern of Sector 2814 due to his complete fearlessness in exposing the hypocrisy in the world and its leaders on his TV show. This could be used as platform for a satirical look at the superhero comic book genre. Yes, yet another one, but one written by the Daily Show writers.

Stewart decides to use his new powers to start making a difference. The Daily Show becomes even more popular. The world leaders start shaping up because, dude, Jon Stewart now has a power ring. He'll mess you up.

Stephen Colbert starts getting worried that he'll never get out of Stewart's now emerald-tinged shadow. Sinestro recruits him to become a member of the Sinestro Corps. In fact, I can see Colbert toppling Sinestro as the leader of the Corps. And the whole thing ends with Stewart and Colbert slugging it out all over the solar system.

And that's the pitch. Here's your license, remix as you see fit.

The Daily Show with Green Lantern by Jason Montgomery is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada License.

Okay, work with me on this one.

The Spanish Flu was 90 years ago. The Swine Flu came from Mexico. And Mexicans speak Spanish.

So can we please call this "Spanish Flu 2: Electric Boogaloo" already?

CNET: Now closing: GeoCities, a relic of Web's early days

"Yahoo is closing its GeoCities personal home page service, and with it will go an era of self-expression on the Web that's largely been replaced by social networks and blogs."

My very first website was on GeoCities. It's address was http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/9162/. All the sites were grouped into neighbourhoods and SiliconValley was the techie hangout. My You Don't Know Jack fansite, the Green Room, was in TimesSquare, the gamer neighbourhood.

I was surprised to read that GeoCities was still up and running, but it's kind of sad to see this little piece of the early days of the Web go. So in commemoration, I am selling this hat on eBay!

Yes, this is an official GeoCities baseball hat that I won in a contest they had. Bid now for this piece of dotcom mania! Yahoo may not pay $2.9 billion, but the opening bid is a buck!

(Everybody grieves in different ways. I attempt to profiteer.)

loonyblog: This blog is not dead. Really!

"I post on Twitter fairly frequently. That's typically where I'll post the "hey look at this awesomely nerdy thing I found" stuff I used to post here."

Calgary Herald: Calgary Transit officers 'did nothing' about LRT station assault

"Calgary Transit is downplaying the claims of an academic who says he witnessed an assault near the Stampede LRT station, only to be ignored by peace officers when he tried to help."

So the transit cops just stood there and did nothing while a concerned citizen reported a crime. This proves that you can literally get away with murder on the Calgary Transit system. But you'd better pay your $2.50 fare beforehand or then they'll bring down the thunder.

Inside EA Sports: Boston goes FTW in Stanley Cup Playoffs

"the EA Sports NHL 09 Simulation team began with simulating each series all the way through the Stanley Cup Championships and the results have predicted that the Boston Bruins will win their first cup in 37 years by defeating the Chicago Blackhawks in six games."

I'm no sports nut, but I wonder how accurate EA Sports' picks are? There's really only one sure thing with their titles.

FP Comment: This 'Earth Hour,' leave the lights on

"This week Competitive Enterprise Institute announced the creation of Human Achievement Hour (HAH) to be celebrated at 8:30 p.m. on March 28, 2009 (the same time and date of Earth Hour).

"Our press release described ways people might celebrate the achievements of humanity such as eating diner, seeing a film, driving around, keeping the heat on in your home -- all things that Earth Hour celebrators, presumably, should be refraining from. In the cheekiest manner, we claimed that anyone not foregoing the use of electricity in that hour is, by default, celebrating the achievements of human beings. Needless to say, the enviros in the blogosphere didn't take to kindly to our announcement."

This editorial summed up and backed up my earlier feelings about Earth Hour. It's a load of hypocritical enviro-hippie crap, so I'll be keeping my lights on, thank you.

And here's an encore from last year: Rick Mercer on Earth Hour.