Mike Jenkinson's Newsroom

Starfield speaks about Abbotsford concert accident

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Sun, 11 May 2008 06:02:00 +0000

Family Guy meets The Matrix

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Sun, 11 May 2008 01:01:00 +0000

Choppers!

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Sat, 10 May 2008 22:40:00 +0000

My younger daughter and I were out at Hawrelak Park today, and the Edmonton and RCMP police helicopters were out, along with the STARS Air Ambulance, and a whole bunch of other emergency responder kind of stuff. It was "emergency preparedness" day or something - fire trucks, HazMat units, ambulances, tanks ... all kinds of things.

Apologies for the crappy picture quality, but my wife has our real camera in Banff this weekend on a band trip with my older daughter. (And sorry about the thumb.)

Meanwhile, the younger daughter was thrilled to see helicopters in person.

While at the park, I also got the chance to chat with Tory MP Rahim Jaffer and Edmonton Mayor Steve Mandel. Good times!

Why Newspapers Are In Trouble, Part MXVIII

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Sat, 10 May 2008 13:25:00 +0000

For the fifth time in the last 21 days, our Edmonton Journal was not properly delivered today. The previous four times, we didn't get a paper at all. Today, we're "only" missing one-third of the sections. (Even the Edmonton Sun's spotty delivery record didn't match this level of mediocrity.)

I know as well as anyone that the newspaper business is in trouble. The industry should not accelerate its demise through poor service to the dwindling number of customers willing to pay for a dead-tree version of the product.

A Hex on the IFL

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Fri, 09 May 2008 23:54:00 +0000

Because the six-sided ring worked so well for the popularity of TNA Wrestling, didn't it?

Mike Jenkinson has shared: Report: Hardcore Championship Fighting Folds - MMA on Tap

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Fri, 09 May 2008 23:43:00 +0000

Mike Jenkinson wanted to share this with you:

Edmonton-based Hardcore Championship Fighting has reportedly gone out of business according to recent comments made by promotional CEO Keith Crawford.
The news comes from Sherdog.com, which was informed by Crawford that the organization had been forced to fold after a potential sale to Canadian television network The Score fell apart.
Crawford believed that the promotion, which had essentially frog-leaped TKO Championship Fighting as Canada's premiere mixed martial arts show after signing a slew of big-name fighters over the past year, expected HCF to move into contention to become MMA's next big company with the move.
An official announcement regarding the purchase was expected to come at some point this weekend, when Crawford and company were slated to have held their latest show, which based on the fighters rumored to have been participating, would have been the organization's biggest showing to date.
The fates of those fighters under contract with HCF are unknown at this time. Crawford has also mentioned that he and business partner Dave Houshiar will continue promoting inside the sport, but as separate entities.

Report: Hardcore Championship Fighting Folds - MMA on Tap
http://www.mmaontap.com/mma/entry/report-hardcore-championship-figh...

The new WWF logo

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Fri, 09 May 2008 23:02:00 +0000

Wrestling fans will get the joke. Everyone else can enjoy all the other great content found here!

Tip of the hat to Bits & Pieces.

Get another pack of Bantha burgers

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:22:00 +0000

The joys of the DVR

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:22:00 +0000

I put the DVR through a good workout last night as I "taped" Monday Night Raw (I'm going to be using the term "taped" for a while thanks to a quarter century of VCR use) and then started watching the program about 30 minutes in. The "chase" feature allowed me to start the show at the beginning and fast-forward through commercials. It didn't take me very long to "chase" the show back to the point where I was watching it live again. And during all of it, the program was still being recorded. Very cool.

As an added bonus, I discovered a Picture-in-Picture feature that I hadn't seen in the manual before that allows you to watch something you've recorded and put a little window in the corner with something live on TV.

I realize that those of you with Tivos or PVRs from your cable or satellite company will be laughing at my great enthusiasm for technology that is hardly cutting edge, but whatever. I'm enjoying my new toy.

So I bought a DVR today ...

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Sun, 04 May 2008 20:35:00 +0000

After having had the opportunity to work with a DVR in my professional life, I decided that it was time to ditch the VCR and buy a DVR at home. So one of our TVs now has a Digital Video Recorder attached to it - with a 250 gig hard drive and Super-Multi DVD player/recorder. The timeshift and chase play features were the big selling points for me, and I'm sure I'm going to get many hours of use out of it.

Amanda Falk - Beautiful

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Sun, 04 May 2008 08:42:00 +0000

My first YouTube video to hit 2,000 views, which it did yesterday.

(And, no, I'm not awake now, sitting in front of the computer posting. I used the scheduled post feature in Blogger to put this up in the middle of the night.)

Human head found in hamburger

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Sat, 03 May 2008 22:44:00 +0000

Windows XP Service Pack 3

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Sat, 03 May 2008 05:36:00 +0000

I took the plunge tonight and installed Windows XP Service Pack 3, even though it has not been pushed to the Windows Update servers. However, it is available from Microsoft if you know how to get it. All the details on how to grab the official file from Microsoft are available here.

So far, so good. Nothing appears to be broken, which is always a plus when installing a major update.

An interview with Scott Keith

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:00:00 +0000

A good interview with my buddy Scott Keith is linked from here. Scott is the author of several good books on professional wrestling, and has a new book coming out on Chris Benoit.

Marking an anniversary

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Thu, 01 May 2008 12:00:00 +0000

It was one year ago today - May 1, 2007 - I started my new career working for the government.

10 Commandments for dropping 10 pounds

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:45:00 +0000

I ran across this link today, and I'm following most of these already. Shame I don't like green tea or avocado.

But even sensible advice like this ignores the fact that once you hit your late 30s (and I'm STILL in my late 30s ... until November), your metabolism slows down and it gets increasingly more difficult to drop those extra pounds.

As for me, losing 10 lbs. would be great right now. A winter full of indoor soccer almost every night kept me out of the gym, and I'm about 10 lbs. heavier than I'd like to be.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 delayed

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:07:00 +0000

PC Mag reports that the third (and final) service pack for Windows XP, which was due out today, has been delayed due to ... wait for it ... compatibility issues!

Which means you can safely use your PC for at least a few more days before collapsing into a weeping mess trying to figure out how Microsoft managed to break your computer with an update.

OK, OK, I kid.

A bit.

Just remember, kids ... System Restore is your friend.

Web 2.0 has been good to me

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 05:32:00 +0000

It's been a few months now since I moved The Newsroom over to the Blogger interface, which allowed for syndicated feeds, permalinks, and better indexing of the blog via Google.

The result, as you can see from the accompanying stats graph, has been a noticeable uptick in my hits and page views. To be sure, a lot of that was traffic generated by Wrestlemania, Ric Flair's retirement, and more recently, the Starfield concert accident I've been blogging about this weekend. But on the whole, my average daily hit count has gone from pathetic single digits to slightly less pathetic double digits.

I'm not going to be winning any blogging traffic awards, but it's mildly satisfying to see that I've generated a small base of regular readers despite no longer having a platform in the pages of the Edmonton Sun from which to generate free name-awareness traffic on this site. (That said, I do get a kick out of seeing the sunpub.com domain show up on my SiteMeter stats generator every once in a while.)

Mike's Mini Movie Review II

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 02:42:00 +0000

Oceans 13: It was weird. Well done, and fun to watch, but weird. It also required watching the wretched Oceans 12 to fully understand it. I'm going to have to watch it a couple more times to tie all the plot twists together. And if I did actually follow the movie correctly, there's the opening for an Ocean's 14 movie with all of the screwed-over bad guys from the first three movies gathering together to get their revenge on Danny's gang. That could be fun.

Sunday evening edit: OK, I watched it again today and it made a whole lot more sense the second time around. A lot of the cues that tie the story together are half-whispered, barely-mentioned throwaway lines that you really have to listen for. But I was far more impressed with the movie the second time around having now pieced the entire thing together.

That still doesn't make Oceans's 12 any better, though.

More on the Starfield concert accident in Abbotsford

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 14:03:00 +0000

Here's a TV report about the concert. Footage of the floor collapsing appears about 45 seconds into the clip.

EDIT APRIL 29: Sorry, folks, the video has been taken off YouTube.

Starfield's Facebook page has a lot of first-hand accounts of the accident.

It's a miracle that no one died, although one person is reportedly seriously injured. But after looking at the TV footage, it's apparent that it could have been a lot worse. God was at work even in that bad situation.

EDIT MAY 11: Because Google is still directing anyone searching for Starfield concert accident information here, I should note that a new video of Starfield addressing the accident is linked here.

Mike Jenkinson has shared: Gadgets: Seiko SlimStick Fitness Aid Explains Why You're Fat

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:50:00 +0000

Mike Jenkinson wanted to share this with you:

Gadgets: Seiko SlimStick Fitness Aid Explains Why You're Fat
http://gizmodo.com/384369/seiko-slimstick-fitness-aid-explains-why-...

Church stage collapses in Abbotsford, B.C.

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:24:00 +0000

A disturbing story from the Starfield concert last night in Abbotsford, B.C.

Animoto video of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 01:54:00 +0000

My mother (believe it or not) suggested I try Animoto. So I did. This was the result of me redoing our Christmas video. It's the 30 second version because I'm too cheap to pay money to make a better video.

Galaxies Gone Wild!

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 22:40:00 +0000

Some great new pictures of galaxies colliding, courtesy of the Hubble Telescope.

Starfield - Reign in Us

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Jenkinson) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:46:00 +0000

My current favourite song.