Convictions

Over the past few days the courts have handed down some noteworthy decisions:

1. Michael Vick was sentenced to 23 months in prison for his role in the dog-fighting ring that he helped to organize. It's a step in the right direction to show the rich and famous that they're not above the law, and also a good stride for animal rights. But you have to wonder why Vick acted so foolishly during the court case when he was only looking at 12-14 months. (And you also have to wonder how he even faced a prison term as low as 12 months in the first place, given the brutality of the crimes.
2. "Lord" Conrad Black was given a sentence of 78 months in prison and ordered to repay over $6 million of money embezzled from shareholders in his company, Hollinger International. This is a light sentence again, considering he could've faced a couple of decades behind bars. At least the US courts proved he wasn't entirely above the law...
3. Robert Pickton was convicted of 6 counts of 2nd degree murder for the killings of prostitutes on his Vancouver area pig farm. He still awaits trial for the murders of 19 other women, and has been implicated (but not charged) in the murders of even more. At the end of the day this guy is going to be behind bars for the rest of his life, but I find it pretty amazing that he wasn't given 1st degree murder convictions. After the first time, he had obviously established what he was doing - hence it was premeditated. I'm also somewhat surprised that Ontarians haven't given nearly as much notice to this case as they did to the Paul Bernardo/Karla Homolka case back in the 90's. This guy is probably Canada's worst serial killer ever (caught?) but he hasn't received nearly as much attention.

Delta

For the first time in months I was able to wake up on a weekday without an alarm clock forcing me out of bed. Granted it was 2 pm, but that kinda made it all the better.

Yesterday was the last day of classes for the semester, and fortunately it was also the last day of work until the new year. And for the first time ever I have less that 5 exams in December. Granted, I had to write two big essays in the last two weeks, but that leaves only 3 exams, which is nice.

And after my exams are done on the 18th I'll be heading to the wife's to stay for a few nights before my dad and bro pick me up on the way to Chicago. Rather than buy each other gifts this year we figured we'd take a trip together and get out to a few hockey games. It's going to make for some tight travel times to make it home for Christmas eve, and I hope the weather holds out.

On a different note, for years I've been trying to figure out how the hell people can make pictures look like this:

A few weeks back I got off my lazy ass and decided to find out how to do it. In reality it's not that hard to do, but I think I gave myself the 24-hour carpal tunnels syndrome due to my ceaseless mouse movement for a few days there.
But after doing a bunch of pictures and putting them up on my flickr page (as seen cycling on the sidebar), I only ran into more questions. One girl on there claimed she could make her camera select only specific colours without having to do any work by hand, but I can't figure out how she does it. She claims that every Canon can do it, but as far as I can tell mine can't. And the damn thing is fairly new, so I'm a little confused.
I'm also pissed off that the program I used to make the changes to the pictures was only a trial program on my computer that has subsequently expired.

Then again, tis the season. So I might have to ask for a decent program to screw with more photos in the future.

Trouble

A few months ago I came across an article on the BBC saying that a billionaire American businesswoman had left $12 million to her pet dog, Trouble.

For the sake of justice, I can only hope that hell does exist...

In brighter news, the dog has now received death threats! I understand the reason for the threats, but what the fuck people? The selfish bitch you ought to be more concerned with is the one that just died. The dog is just a bloody dog.

I can't imagine what this poor woman's life must have been like. How could someone like that have any friends? I just keep picturing a female Monty Burns sitting in her empty mansion fingering away at that glass of brandy...