Weekend Report

So what did I do this weekend…

I helped my Uncle setup his new Panasonic PT-AE900 projector and screen. He’s a got a nice new home theatre room in his house. I helped him tweak out the sound and the projector, though he’ll still need to cut out a pop can shim to keep the projector mount from moving around. It has a gap in the pipe that needs to be shimmed tight.

His sound system is a bit ancient. It was an old Technics 6 channel Dolby Digital Ready amp with an outboard decoder. I hadn’t seen one of those in ages. It sounds OK, but the picture is amazing. However, the sound wasn’t so bad that you couldn’t enjoy yourself.

Today, I headed down to the local coffee shop to work on my BMW Magazine article. It’s coming along really good. Just a couple more paragraphs, and I’m ready to hand in a first draft. At first, I thought it would be easier to write due to the fact that they only ask for about 500 words per article. However, I quickly learned that print media is a fine mix of giving just enough information, and covering the right points, within the rigid constraints of the magazine layout. This is something that online magazines don’t have to struggle with. I’m hoping that this experience will make me a better writer.

I was a victim of forum moderator power tripping this weekend. I’ve been visitingNSMB Forums, a site devoted to talking about freeride mountain biking. I finally signed up for an account in October of 2005 (I lurked for ages), and since then, I’ve been contributing to discussions and learning about the sport that I participate in. I’m no stranger to forums or forum rules about spamming. Heck, I have a great time hunting down and shooting spammers at the Futurelooks Forums. Anyway, I posted the link to the review of the Samsung SC-X210L Extreme Camcorder; a product that is in every way, related to the sport, and would be a great accessory to have with you while pulling off that killer drop.

The thread got to about 5 or 6 posts until it mysteriously disappeared. I’m like, what the hell? Then, just as mysteriously, I got a private message telling me that my post was deleted due to soliciting product. Excuse me?? I think buddy just screwed up and deleted something that he didn’t read. It’s a frickin’ review! A frickin’ review that had EVERYTHING to do with Freeriding because that’s the example used in the performance evaluation. After reading through the rules, I call his bullshit, repost it (I ribbed him a little without naming names for deleting it), and PM’d him back pointing out the obvious fact that he screwed up, here it is in the rules that he is responsible to uphold, and give him the link to the new post.

A couple hours later:

“You’ll brush it off and forgive me? Gee, how kind of you.

That’s a pretty smug attitude, and your post is blatantly disrepsectful – especially since you reposted before the issue was resolved.

And within the realms of our ‘no soliciting’ rules, redirecting someone from our bulletin boards to a commercial enterprise (which is what Futurelooks is) can constitute soliciting.

I’d ask you to please delete the comments in the post, and we’ll leave it at that.”

OK, so how do you resolve a problem when you’ve already gone ahead, deleted a post, that you clearly didn’t check out? Then you get all “Holier than thou” when someone calls you on your bullshit. You screwed up! I even told him that I recognized he was trying to do his job, and that I forgave the misunderstanding. Then he tries to “Interpret” the rules for me. Buddy, soliciting (or spamming) is what it is, and there is no interpretation. I did neither. I’m a contributing member of that forum and I clearly didn’t deserve to be disrespected that way. Don’t moderate if you can’t stand it when someone calls your bullshit, especially when I buy a membership to your “Commercial Enterprise” every year.

Onto another subject, still Freeriding related, Brice dragged me up and down Burnaby Mountain. Although my cardio is still “In Development” I managed to make it all the way up, and had a cautious downhill run through some very new terrain that I had not seen before. Looks like they did a lot of work over the off season. This one trail had sequences 2 – 3 foot drops coming down the face. Since they were steep, it was hard to stop, so you pretty much had to commit or go over the bars. Let’s just say, I didn’t get points for style.

Afterwards, I was feeling the severe arm pump, and almost had to let go at one point because I couldn’t hold on. Hopefully I can build those muscles bouldering in the climbing gym this week.

Weekend… Out…