Yes, it’s that time of month again, maid day. When I got sick with pneumonia in the fall my mom came and spent a few days with me and ended up cleaning my entire apartment. Being a busy, single guy, it was in a pretty sad state. My mom, being a constant worrier, implored me, for her sake, to get someone to help clean my apartment so it would be clean and I wouldn’t have to worry about getting sick at home. Since I’m sort of cheap (at least for things that don’t involve technology), but wanted to put my mom’s mind at ease, I made myself a compromise — I’d get a maid but cancel my ...

Tonight I ended up down at the Paramount theatre in Vancouver for a premiere of Cloverfield. For those of you who keep up with such things, Cloverfield has been somewhat of a mystery, relying mainly on word of mouth and a few minutes of raw footage released as a trailer for promotional means. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD Going into the movie, I basically expected something similar to the Blair Witch Project, and for the most part, that’s exactly what I got. Granted there are a few more effects in this movie, and it is set in the heart of Manhattan, but for the most part it’s just the regurgitation ...

Eight easy steps: 1. Toss and turn all night 2. Fall asleep at 5am 3. Get up at 9:30am and try to head to work 4. Call a cab, and tell him to take you to work 5. Pay cab driver. Drop money all over the cab and look dumb. 6. Exit cab and close door, making sure to slam your iPod touch in the door 7. Stand there looking at iPod touch drive away with cab driver, only to fall off a half block away 8. Pick up iPod touch on the concrete, now without headphones ...

For the last few months, we’ve all been hearing Clay complain about being out of breath and not being able to walk very far around the office. His general doctor did some tests on him and said there wasn’t anything wrong and that he should just move past it. Eventually Clay got referred to a specialist since things just kept getting worse for him. Turns out he has a blockage in his heart which is why he’s having problems. Tomorrow Clay is heading down for an angiogram, and will probably have to get a stent in his heart. My dad had something similar last year, and while the procedure is relatively ...

I got an email this morning asking if I’d like to speak at a university technology conference in Venezuela in May. All expenses would be paid for. Caracas, Venezuela, photo by josemazcona Fun party in Caracas, photo my rmendezHell yah baby. Hell yah. I just have to come up with something to talk about. Maybe I’ll talk about the cute group of women pictured above. ...

Photo by miss604Be afraid. Be very afraid. I’m heading out to watch this tonight with Rebecca, John and John. Rebecca had tickets to the Vancouver premiere and invited me along, which is totally exciting. I’m going on the record as saying I’m pretty sure this is going to suck (the trailer reminds me of a techy Blair Witch Project), but it’ll be a fun suck with a bunch of friends. That sounds dirty, I know. Check out the trailer below: I’m pretty sure the entire budget for the film went into the funky Independence-Day-looking poster, just to attract more people. ...

I’ve been using Leopard now for around 3 months, and to be honest, I’m really not impressed at all. It’s an extremely buggy OS with a bunch of mediocre improvements, many of which I haven’t really found a use for. Spaces? I actually thought these would be cool, but I just haven’t been able to find a good use for them. In fact, I find myself accidentally switching between spaces from time to time thanks to how heavily I rely on the control and option keys for other things. Stacks is another completely useless feature, mainly because you can’t really see enough icons. Plus, it’s generally ...

Apple just announced an ultra-think notebook computer called the Air. Photo by Gnackgnackgranck on Flickr Looks pretty cool, but it doesn’t have a DVD drive, and is sealed shut like a big iPod. Based on my experiences with my Macbook Pro and Leopard, I think I’m definitely pulling myself out of the “early-adopter” crowd with Apple and waiting a while this round to see what happens. ...

I’ve decided that I want to go snowboarding a few times this season, starting like right now. I’m definitely going to hit Seymour with Rebecca and John soon, but was wondering if any other of my crazy readers were hitting the slopes this year. If so, where do you normally go? I need people who kind of suck to go with, since I’m pretty much guaranteed to roll down most of the hills. Snowboard, photo by miss604 The good news is that I absolutely hate my powershot camera, and will happily bring it along with the hope that I will a) capture some great, funny moments of me falling and/or b) ...

Here are a few photos from the photo walk along the beach yesterday. The rest of them can be found on my Flickr photoset. ...

In about 30 minutes, the beach photowalk near my place is going to begin. It turned out to be a rather nice day with some ideal light, so hopefully there will be a pile of great shots taken. The challenge always for me is figuring out what lens to bring and what exactly I want to shoot. I haven’t shot film in quite a while, so I loaded some 160VC portrait film in my one camera and put my wide angle on it, and will bring my 70-200mm f/2.8L for doing some portraits near the water. I’m just making some coffee and making sure my cameras are good to go, then heading downstairs to meet people. I’ll ...

Keira and me, photo by Miss604 Read about the fun and the magic over at Rebecca’s website. Tonight is also Rebecca’s birthday margarita party. Should be fun. ...

Last night, Rebecca and Trevor told me about the sex show this weekend taking place at the Vancouver Convention Center. Since I’ve never been to one, and haven’t had an opportunity to take my camera out in a few weeks, I decided to head down and check it out. Live Entertainment In terms of layout and logistics, it was like any other tech conference I had ever been at. There were tons of booths, some of which made sense given the aim of the sex show, and some which obviously shouldn’t have been there. One that comes to mind is Sun Life Financial in the back corner. Seriously, do you really ...

I get a lot of notifications in my inbox daily about scientific rumblings going on in the world, but this one caught my eye this evening. Some recent NASA data in the arctic region seems to point to a huge acceleration in the melting rate of the ice — should the melting continue at its current rate, NASA scientists project that it’s only a matter of years before the arctic might be completely ice free in the summers. An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping ...

Anyone know of any micropayment gateways available in Canada? I’ve been looking at paypal and Amazon’s FPS system, but both of those only support micropayments in the US. Anyone have any ideas at all? ...

Ahh yes.. Friday.. So exciting.. This was a really good week. I hung out with friends, got some stuff done in the office, and have a pile of fun things to do this weekend. After work I’m meeting up with Rebecca, Kasia and maybe Keira for some wings and beer. Life’s rough I know. Plus on the way over I want to buy a flash diffuser over at Leo’s Camera on Granville, something that I used at the last wedding I shot and wished I actually owned. Tomorrow there are two parties, one for Rebecca’s birthday and one for Kasia’s. I have to make appearances at both, but I think I can pull it off. ...

Just read that an Air Canada flight from Victoria to Toronto was forced to make an emergency landing in Calgary due to turbulence. Apparently the plane hit a patch of turbulence that sent a pile of people into the ceiling. I would have probably shit my pants had that happened on my flight. My last flight to Kelowna was pretty bad, and my glasses came off at one point, but thankfully my head didn’t encountered the ceiling. Half a dozen passengers were badly injured after an Air Canada plane bucked in midair on a flight across Canada, probably because of heavy turbulence. A spokesman for Calgary ...

So Leila just came up to me at work today and said congrats. I said “for what?” And she said she was recently on an Air Transat flight and came across a pile of photos in the middle of the in-flight magazine from my last trip to the Dominican Republic. She said they all said “photo by Duane Storey”, and that she was sure they were mine. Funny thing is I had no idea they had been published. I know Air Transat has a section where users can submit their photos for consideration, which I did after coming back from the Dominican Republic, but nobody ever contacted me and said they were going ...

Today is my good friend Rebecca’s birthday. To be honest, I’m not really sure how old she is, but I’m convinced she is dangerously close to being a cougar. I’ve only known Rebecca for about a year now, but I’m thankful we’ve gotten to be good friends in that time. Happy Birthday Rebecca! ...

Last couple days have been a bit busy for me. Started a new project at work which is fairly interesting, and have spent a lot of time catching up in that area. Rest of the week should be about the same. I’ve been meaning to head down to the lab to get another run of tests to see where I stand with all the health garbage I was dealing with. Maybe on Friday. This weekend there are two birthdays going on, Kasia and Rebecca, which should be a lot of fun. Rebecca is just about to breach “cougar territory” and I’m glad I get to be around to see the start of the transition. ...