Watch this, or click here and watch it:

The Tewksbury State Hospital houses some violent criminals. The facility serves a number of purposes including mental hospital and prison. It’s been that way for years. When I lived in Tewksbury we would, on rare occasions, receive reverse 911 calls from the local police telling us that some one who shouldn’t have been off the hospital grounds was off the hospital grounds. I also seem to recall getting important reverse 911 calls about things like fund-raisers.

I have family and friends in town still. One lives very close to the hospital. Literally next door. He said he could hear evidence of the search for this escaped prisoner last night, but he didn’t receive anything from 911.

That’s inexcusable. There’s a violent criminal prison escapee in town and the public had to hear about it on the news the next day? What’s the point of the system then? There absolutely should have been a reverse 911 call placed. Way to drop the ball.

So I did it… On the private page I managed to get a video to play using HTML5. It worked in Safari but not in Firefox, Chrome, or IE8. I don’t know exactly which version of each browser I am using so that might be part of the reason why it didn’t work in Firefox or Chrome. IE8 doesn’t support HTML5 at all so we don’t have to include that in the discussion any more.

While looking for examples of the video tag in action I came across this page here (thanks Google), called Video on the Web – Dive into HTML5.

According to that, the reason why my testing sort of worked and sort of didn’t is because video in HTML5 sort of works and sort of doesn’t. It’s not only browser specific, it’s browser and format specific, and most of the browsers support different formats. According to the page, Chrome should support anything… so why didn’t my tests work? Who knows. I’m getting a headache.

Anyway, if you’re interested in video on the web give that page a read. There is a lot of interesting stuff there.

Enjoy.

Go Bruins!

I watched most of last night’s Bruins game. I listened to a little bit of the third period on the radio too. I shut it off when the Flyers went up 4-0. That was by far the worst the B’s have played this post season. They came undone and it happened quick. So many penalties. So many skaters standing around admiring the view. So much suck in one place.

It was really hard to watch. Game four they lost, but they played well. Game five they just lost. Now the series is three games to two. We have two more chances to close it out. Tomorrow in Philly, and Friday in Boston. If Philly wins tomorrow I think the chances of the Bruins winning Friday are about zero, and I would put the odds of Philly winning tomorrow very high. You can only judge a team by their last game, and you have to judge the Bruins as beaten despite their commanding lead in the series. They looked whipped.

To top off the pain, the friggin’ Canadiens beat Pittsburgh last night to force a game seven on Wednesday. The Montreal at Pittsburgh game will start at 7:00, and the Boston at Philadelphia game will start at 8:00.

Oh the pain.

Go Bruins!

40 years ago today. Mother’s Day, May 10, 1970. The day that Bobby Orr flew.

The Bruins beat the St. Louis Blues in overtime to complete a four game sweep and win their first Stanley Cup in (approximately) 21,353,632 years.

Today the Bruins are unveiling a statue outside of the garden depicting Bobby Orr flying through space after scoring the Cup winning goal. Not long after the ceremony the Bruins will play the Flyers in game five of their conference semi-final series. A win tonight puts them in the conference finals and leaves them eight wins away from winning the Stanley Cup again.

May the spirit of the 1970 team be with them. It’s been a long time since we’ve made it to the conference finals (1992) and a longer time since we’ve been to the Stanley Cup finals (1990) and a boat load longer since last we won it all (1972)… but it’s the playoffs, we’re in command of the series, and anything can happen.

Go Bruins!

Here are two things I won’t be seeing but figure some random people stopping by might be interested in.

First, when Rush announced their tour not long ago, Jen the love of my life and I looked at the financial situation, including the upcoming Disney trip, and decided that we could only afford one show. That’s perfectly fine with me.

This morning Mike called me and told me that Roger Waters is doing The Wall at the Garden in September. (I looked up the dates, September 30, and October 1) He asked if I wanted to go. The answer is Yes, I want to go. The answer to the implied question, will I go, was no.

I saw Roger Waters do Dark Side of the Moon a few years ago and it was a great show. It was strange in a way though. One of those moments where it feels more like a cover band that just happens to have the guy who wrote or co-wrote all of the music. Great performance and all… just not quite authentic. I imagine a performance of The Wall would be similar, although on a much more gigantic scale. I’d love to see the show, but I have already spent my big ticket concert dollar for this year, and frankly if I were going to want to see another show it would be a second Rush show.

Sorry Mike. Sorry Roger. As much as I’d like to go, I’m going to have to pass this time.

The second cool thing I am not going to attend is a cinema showing of the new Rush documentary, RUSH: BEYOND THE LIGHTED STAGE. The film is going to be shown at The Regent Theater in Arlington, MA on June 6th at 7:30pm. Donna Halper, the woman often credited with “discovering” Rush for the United States will be appearing at the showing.

I would Love to see this in the theater, but I think it’s going to be a blu-ray only experience for me. (complete with the reported hour or so of bonus footage that is supposed to be included in the various home video releases.) The weekend of June 6th is going to be an insanely busy one for us. We have a whole ton of things planned and I don’t want to mess with any of them for a movie. Sure, it’s going to be a one time chance to see it in a theater, but I was never really expecting to bother with any possible theater showings.

I would much rather get together with a few friends and the love of my life and watch the blu-ray version on our swanky new (well… not so new) HD television with a bag of chips or a bowl of popcorn. That sounds like a much better use of this flick to me. Then maybe follow it up with the Exit… Stage Left video or something. That would be cool.

So to all of you who are going to see Roger do The Wall, or to The Regent in Arlington to see the reported actual film footage of Rush playing live with John Rutsey on drums (can you say, holy grail?) I hope you have a great time.

For anyone who might learn of these events from this post and decide to check them out, you’re welcome. (let’s be real though, the grand total of said people will be a big fat zero)

And for those of you who don’t care either way (let’s be real, that’s all of you)…

Go Bruins!

Now that the very busy weekend is through, we can start looking forward to the next busy weekend.

We had my birthday on Saturday and Mother’s Day on Sunday. Next weekend we have a 9th birthday party that should trump all other 9th birthday parties that have ever come before it. It has been billed as “The Last Single Digit Birthday” and it should be a great time.

The weekend after that the kid’s dad is getting married. That should be another good time. I am really looking forward to seeing a certain junior bridesmaid and a certain junior usher in action again. Last year during our wedding we were a little busy and didn’t have as much time to beam over the kids as we would have liked (you know, with the whole getting married thing) but this time we’ll be able to pay closer attention to how awesome they are.

At some point after that there is that whole trip to Disney World thing that we sort of have to muddle our way through. (did you spot the sarcasm?)

Last weekend we put together our list of must-see things in the Magic Kingdom. Yesterday we voted on the list for Epcot Center. Again, this is not a binding resolution, and it does not include Nana and Papa’s picks, but here is the list as it stands right now:

Must-sees:
Soarin
The Seas with Nemo and Friends
Test Track
Spaceship Earth
World Showcase (including Kim Possible adventure)
Illuminations

Nice to See:
Mission: Space
Circle of Life

In addition to our already planned stops during our fabulous Florida/Disney vacation, Jen also managed to snag us some seats for Chef Mickey’s.

We knew Mickey was a great actor, but the mouse can cook too!

As for the coming week… Bruins. Damn it.

They have three chances to beat Philadelphia one time. They must win. They must. They cannot let Philly back into this and run the risk of being the fourth team in major professional sports history to blow a 3-0 series lead. It’s happened in hockey twice before. The most recent time was in baseball when the glorious Boston Red Sox came back from 3-0 to beat the evil, vile, hated New York Yankees in 2004. (note how I am not mentioning the Sox/Yanks games from Friday or Saturday. I’m making a big wide detour around those two games, thank you very much.) The Bruins must win the series. They cannot go down in as the next ’04 Yankees.

Game five is tonight in Boston. Win it tonight Bruins. Please, win it tonight.

Go Bruins!
Go Mickey Mouse!
Go Bruins!

Happy Mother’s Day to all who are eligible for celebration.

We just came home from taking my mother out to brunch at the Holiday Inn in Tewksbury. It was the four of us, my mom and dad, my brother, his wife, and their baby (as well as their baby to be!), and my sister, her husband, and their baby. It was a very nice bit of family time and it came complete with a gigantic dessert table. Nice!

Yesterday was my birthday. We had a very nice, quiet day. First Jen and I got haircuts and I went to the gym. Very celebratory indeed. Then we went to my parent’s house for some extra baby time. My folks were baby sitting my sister’s son and my brother’s family made a visit so that the two little kids could play together. Jen and I took advantage by joining in for the fun.

After that we went to Larry and Nawal’s for a visit and to see their four month old baby. When we headed over there we thought that we were going to leave at about 5:30 because they were going to be having some work done in their cellar. When we got there we found out the cellar work had been postponed and we stayed for dinner. Nawal was kind enough to offer and we took her up on it. Dinner was excellent. More important, the baby was adorable! He’s getting very big. He also graced us with some smiling. Almost all of which were directed at Jen. I am pretty sure the little guy likes Jen a lot. I like her too. A lot.

So for the rest of the day we are planning some mother’s day movies, a little Disney planning, and a few board games. Tomorrow we’ll have to get ourselves ready for some major Bruins/Flyers game five. A Must Win if ever there was one. No 2004 Yankees this time.

Go Bruins!
Happy Mother’s Day!
Go Bruins!

Today is May 8th. The worst day ever. My birthday. My last birthday with a three in the tens column. The last one before I can no longer kid myself that I’m not old yet.

Bummer.

The Bruins were supposed to give me a birthday gift by finishing off the Flyers. They made it to over time, but that was it. Game five is in Boston on Monday. Let’s hope they show me more respect then.

I don’t know if we’re doing anything to celebrate today. Probably not. Maybe just hang out. Maybe see if a friend or two want to hang out too.

Next year my birthday will be on Mother’s Day. As a kid that was always a bummer. Next year it will be a bummer for a different reason. Four. Zero. That reason.

Bummer.

So the audio tag works when I view it on Safari. What about the big honkin’ mother lode of HTML5? What about the video tag?

If this works the video will include some make-sure-you-have-headphones-on-if-you-view-this-at-work language. It’s my favorite video clip ever.

your browser does not support the video tag

Just in case, here is another test subject.

your browser does not support the video tag

Cross your fingers. (there may have been an issue with downloading the file, so it might not work even if the video tag is supported)

*ADDENDUM*
Okay, so this one appears to be a bust. Two tests and no video player opening. I will try again later.

*ADDENDUM TWO*
But wait, there’s more! I used two flash video files. That was probably my first mistake. I opened the page using Google Chrome and the controls popped up but there was no video. I will try again with an mpg or an avi.

This is a Test.
This is only a Test.

I read an article on Mashable today reporting that Google Reader has added HTML 5 support. That got me wondering if Blogger supports HTML 5 yet.

So I am going to run a test…

Your browser does not support the audio element.

I wonder if it works. I might have to view this on a couple of different browsers.

Go Bruins!

*ADDENDUM*

That’s a resounding YES!

It doesn’t work on the version of Firefox I am using here, but it sure as hell does work on Safari. As I type this (on Firefox) am I listening to Victory at Sea playing “Sunny Days” (on Safari).

File this entry under KICK ASS!

(sub file it under NERD!)