Blonde Day

Oi.

Okay so I do have a follow up date! Yay me! And while arranging it, I realized later that I may have said some things that were either a) stupid or b) open to some very negative interpretation when I actually meant to give a compliment. I won't go into detail here.

Sometimes I think the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz and I should start our own bowling team....

On top of that: I got to the gym tonight, opened up my gym bag and realized that after doing laundry on Sunday I neglected to put any clean clothes back in the bag. So I rushed out into the mall, got the cheapest shorts (red) and t-shirt (blue) that I could find in the clearance rack and went back to the gym.

Now the shorts said "Medium" but I think that may have been a slight exaggeration. The t-shirt was the right size but was, in point of fact, a tank top.

All that was missing was the terry-cloth head and wrist bands. I could have passed for a taller, balder version of Richard Simmons.

Guess Who had a Date?

Yup. Me.

A coffee date with someone I met on the internet. Now, the reason I didn't tell anyone (here or in real life) as I tend to think it jinxes it. That, and I get over-excited, nervous and clumsy. Clumsier. I'm not known for sweeping women off of my feet, more like tripping them. But coffee was good, and we had a nice walk around the neighborhood: the weather finally cleared up.

She's a pretty cool girl: she's traveled, smart, has an English degree and is a total geek. I won't go into detail here, but lets just say there are a remarkable amount of similar interests.

I know, scary similarity there.

So I think it went well, no walk of shame. An exchange of phone numbers is happening (via email) and we're supposed to make arrangnments for drinks later on.

Just hope my shyness factor reduces itself a bit. She seemed to be pretty business-like (not uncommon though and to be expected) and there wasn't alot of tension. And I wasn't my usual goofy self. That's normal right?

Anyway, a good first date with no out-of-left-field surprises like unrevealed children, an Amway pitch or obvious psychosis. In her. Me, I'm never sure about.

And she's cute, never discount that. Of course, it takes a couple dates to determine a rapport (as opposed to the instant, not-a-chance date). Good feeling so far as we seem intellectually compatible.

We'll see. Here's hoping.

Up the Ziggurat

Congrats and kudos to the Lemming for getting a push up to management at the ol' evil empire.

Seems a lot of my mates are getting promoted there while I am firmly attached to the bottom rung. I am the master of the career limiting move!

Thank the gods.

And for linkage, the makers of Ask a Ninja now have a spin-off: Hope Is Emo.

No wonder I don't watch television anymore.

Rant, Manifesto or Position Paper

Alright, before I get to the meat of the matter of today, a couple of housekeeping things:

I shaved off the soul patch. As an experiment, it was a success. However one of the variables I didn't consider was the fact while many men have their hair grow at an angle close to the curve of the jaw, my facial hair has the organization of a gorse bush. Grooming is all well and good but the 'product' I was using (and didn't work that well) was giving me zits.

So while giving myself the month buzz (hair cut, not inebriation), I chopped the chin-hedge off.

My chin is cold.

The weather (rain, more rain, humidity) is getting me down. I haven't taken a good bike ride in a week and it's driving me buggy. On teh other hand, I've gone from a two-on, one-off work out schedule to a three-on, one-off rate. I'm sore. And suddenly I'm pressed for time! Not sure I can keep this up. Maybe 3-on, 1-off, 2-on, 1-off? Nah, too complicated.

I now have one foot back on the no-smoking wagon, although I keep sneakin' 'em. As stated previously on many occassions, this is hard. I need a new job.

And I still can't get a hold of the guy to arrange my free beer!

Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!!

Ahem.

So on to the main topic. Which I have entitled:

Ivory in Shadow: How IT has Failed Business, Business has Failed IT and the How the IT Business has Failed Everyone

Yeah it's a mouthful.

It's basically a commentary on how IT is still failing to deliver on promises to business, how business forces these failures in many cases, and how technology companies exacerbate the problem by offering more technology to solve what ails technology.

This came about from yet another marketecture presentation today. In essence, it was to add more software layers (and therefore more hardware, more network and more complexity) to make things all work together.

I'm going to have to research this a bit, but I'm thinking that the roots of the problem are a fundamental misunderstanding of what technology can and cannot do (and surprisingly, its the techs who don't seem to understand the most), business practices that are directly opposed to how software is developed (and vice versa) and a lack of will to address the fundamental issue of change.

So instead of a blog rant, it probably will be a paper. And surprisingly, I have a kernel of an idea on how to possibly fix some of the problems.

So I'm going to read a few things, talk to some people and who knows, look at maybe getting it published as an article. May take a while.

Oh yeah, the title refers to the "Ivory Tower" being overshadowed and threatened by an office building. Yep, English degree. I can see the cover of my ground-breaking, paradigm shifting (sorry) study on real software in real business now. Amazon, here I come!

Or Slashdot. Either is good.

Weak Week

Eesh. Work just keeps getting better and better. I had one application back in a normal state (ie broken but those responsible for fixing it can actually fix it) and another one, which has much more impact, is busted.

Not busts, was busted. Since February. And for the same reasons as the first app. The guys who were supposed to notice, didn't. And they were the guys that busted it.

On top of that one of my (let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, .... 7) managers tries to get me pulled off of a comittee that I refuse to leave because he thinks it's impacting my time. I don't see how 4 hours a week does that. It's the one thing I think I actually get progress on (albeit slowly). On top of that I get yet another project from a manager who thinks I can build a data warehouse in one day.

So I asploded.

Needless to say, whenever I asplode, I risk my job. And I know that. The consideration is that I either quit (which leaves people I actually like in a heap of trouble) or I risk getting punted.

And once again, I actually get the resources I need to get the job done. Playing nice just don't work at times.

So with all that, I fell of the wagon. Hard. Then got run over. Then while I had a cigarette to recover, the wagon-driver got out and kicked me inna nads.

I did have a job interview. Or rather, I talked to the guy who was going to give me the job interview. He wanted to reschedule because he was trying to leave early on his vacation. Not the best first impression. Not as bad as the time as the guy giving me an interview was drunk though. At 11 AM.

Let's see, women. They still exist, right? Actually that's not correct. I didn't get some sort of superpower making me invisible to the fairer sex, did I.

Hmmm, maybe that's what I need. A female boss. No, no, no. Not for that....

Well, maybe. I could use a sugar momma.

Game wise, Planetside has lost it's luster. just too frustrating. And I found out there's a ton of cheats. And no, I don't cheat, I just stop paying. I picked up Dawn of War and Winter Assault (Warhammer 40K RTS). Not bad, but I've never been an RTS fan, it's just there's nothing else to play. At least new to play. And I have a short attention span.

When is Spore coming out?

'Nuff Said. Beer time. No not free yet, the guy I need to make the arrangements isn't picking up his phone.

Looks like my usual luck/Karma is back.

Hung. Over.

Oh dear gods....

No I didn't get my free beer yet. But I did consume quite a bit of vodka with my little brother last night. We went to the peelers and the little schmuck ended up with 2 phone numbers from the wait staff.

Then he tried to give me lessons on how to pick up women.

Suicide is still a mortal sin right? Not that it matters, as I'm in enough pain as it is....

Gah.

Free Beer

Finally, some return on my Karmic investment!

Some friends and myself buy season tickets to Alberta Theatre Projects every year. I like to make a donation as well.

Turns out this year they had a draw. I got a phone call from them this morning saying I had a choice between appearing on-stage as an extra for their Christmas performances of Peter Pan, or beer for the summer.

What do you think I picked?

So I get, home-delivered, a 12 pack of my choice of Big Rock Brewery's finest. For fifteen weeks.

Now I'm a cheap date, but that's not an issue. I've had three invites to weekend barbeques since I won...

Looks like I have friends after all!

Spring Cleaning

So the City is doing it's usual spring thing: cleaning the streets of all the crud and salt that was dumped on it in the winter. Of course in order to do so, they need the streets clear so they post signs the day before.

Last night, tow trucks started showing up on my street (at 2 AM) and started carting cars away.

Now this is loud enough. Add to that, the local residents making death threats etc. against the truck drivers.

You see, no notices were posted on my block that it was being cleaned. So there was a whole street of cars. And angry car owners.

The cops showed up about 3 AM to try and settle everyone down. Needless to say I'm a bit of a zombie today.

Fell Off and Run Over

Argh, went and bought a pack of smokes again today.

Why the hell is this so damn hard? So now in addition to smoking, I've been inhaling about 4000 calories an hour. So I'll be a fat bastard with cancer instead of a skinny geek.

May have to patch it....

Back Again

So I go into work this morning and the first thing I hear before I even turn on my computer is that my project got cancelled. Again.

I'm never sure if that's a good or a bad thing. It does mean I was bored though.

And I was past the livid rage stage in the non-smoking progression. It ,will be back though. I was in an almost Nirvanic (is that a word?) state: I would stop in the middle of a sentence, would forget what the heck I was doing in the middle of a task. All with a blissful grin on my face.

Of course, that may have been brought about due to lack of sleep last night. I was still on 'holiday time', where I don't go to bed before 1am.

It was tough not smoking, so tough that I had one after work (dammit!). Ah well, I'm glad it was just one. And that was due to an issue that I had resolved, passed along to those whose responsibility it was in the first place, and it wound up back at me. Louisville time.

And the internet dating thing. Well, lets just put it this way. There's a pattern that emerges, those that I contact ignore me, and the few who make first contact, I have no interest in.

Mind you, I wound up being geek-in-shining-armor yesterday for someone who wanted to know if their ex-bf got ahold of their password. After the crisis had passed, we had an email conversation over the course of 4 hours. Naturally, she lives on the other side of the country....

I swear to gods, there a screenplay, tentatively titled "Geek mating Rituals" in all of this.

Vacation: Terminated

So, back to work tomrrow.

Just in time time. I'm now in the "pick a fight" phase of quitting smoking. Which should prove interesting.

Hope the weather is nice at least, I haven't been on the bike in 3 days and miss it already. Not the ride, the view.

Anyway, for those of you who I work with are reading this, you may want to avoid the eleventh floor tomorrow. Or all week.

Review and Return

Well, just came back from X-Men 3 (and I only had to shut up one group of kids twice, but the crying infant wouldn't respond to threats).

I don't want to give it away, but a basic impression should do.

First, it's very obvious that this was not directed by the same person as the first two films: it's very action driven rather than character drive. Not that's necessarily a bad thing, but concerning the subject matter, I would have referred the original hand on the helm.

It really reminds me of the days when I read more comic books. I loved such series as The New Mutants, eXcalibur, Alpha Flight etc. At least for a while. Back in the day (and still now apparently) once Marvel had a best seller (usually after a year) they would move the creative team to a book that wasn't doing so well. What usually happened was the new team would take the story in a completely different direction, getting rid of characters and story ideas in the space of panel or two.

The movie was a lot like that. So not bad, decent actually but handled (jarringly) different than the two previous film. I give it 3 tophats (out of five).

Oh, and I reactivated my profiles on a couple of dating sites.

Sucker for punishment I tells ya....

Day .... er, 6?

Quitting smoking sucks. Hands down.

There are times when I am perfectly fine: I can functional as normal human being and not want to crawl into a dark corner, curl up into the foetal position, and whimper.

And so my week of "recharging" is almost done, now it's just another weekend. I got most of what I wanted to do, well, done. I do find that any actual creative endeavors (such as writing, drawing etc) are really unaccomplishable until I've had a full week off. It's at that point (today) that my left-hemisphere has had a chance to unclench and allow some right-brain activity. So I may try some stuff over the next 48 hours.

This week was also a time for reflection on the whole dating thing. Am I ready to date? Do I actually want to enter another relationship? If so, how do I go about actually meeting women?

So I think I am ready to meet someone. But no internet dating (urgh, not going through that again). That means I'll have to actually, you know, leave the house. So what activities should I try? There's the gym of course, but I see so many goombahs trying to chat up girls who look like they want to be anywhere but on the treadmill. I don't want to be one of those guys.

Classes are a possibility. There's yoga, which I really should get back into, for nothing else that getting stretchy again. Don't think I'll ever be actually limber. Then there's things like taking a cooking class, but I highly suspect that it would be a sausage fest (pun intended); a class full of guys trying to meet women.

There's also the whole professional development issues. Work is dragging a bit on the whole educational professional development thing, but it looks like I should be able to get some cash out of them for taking some tech courses. And those are notoriously gender-biased (and all the really cool geek-girls are taken, in my experience).

So what to do? While there's more than a couple lovelies at the office, I swore I would never date a co-worker again. There's always the introduction of singles by mutual friends, but I would have to actually have friends to do that.

Maybe I need to get a social life of some sort....

Ah well, being single isn't all that bad.

Tracking

So I finally got a tracking number for my book order. Looks like it's ben sitting in a sorting station for the past two days. So unless Canada Post has some new fangled teleportation device, I won't be seeing anything until Tuesday. One to three day shipping indeed....

Finally got all the cleaning done. Was going to go for a nice long bike ride, but the thunder and lightning is sort of putting me off. No idea what to do, man am I bored.

I actually attempted to write. After staring at my new Word document for twenty minutes without writing more than two words, I gave up. Just not inspired. Maybe tonight, the right-side of my brain only fires up in the evening. Too used to having the left side have complete and total control during working hours.

Also ran out of all the snacks I got (healthy stuff) on the weekend, I should probably go get some more.

Slippage

Damn, went out and bough cigarettes last night. The old "just one" excuse.
They're in the bin now, but a part of me still wants to go dumpster diving and have "just one more".

So why do I keep paying for "Priority Delivery"? You know, supposedly delivered the next day. I ordered some books Monday and the tracking says they are still out East. Just some light reading, but still I have the week off and would like to get them before I go back to work next week.

I guess there is one born every minute, and they are still around 37 years later....

Day 2

One of the key things in quitting smoking is to keep busy.

By 3pm today I have:

Cleaned out my closet and storage room

Cleaned the Bathroom

Repotted all of my house plants

Cleaned the bathroom

Cleaned and detailed my car exterior and interior

I'm gonna run outta things to do around here by Thursday at this rate.

Anyone need any housework done? French Maid's uniform will not be worn. Unless you pay me enough.

At least I'm getting a contact high from all the solvents. Wheeeee!

PC Gaming is Shelved

Oh yeah forgot to mention yesterday.

Dropped by EB games yesterday. Remember a while back I lamented the shrinking shelf space that PC games have at such establishments?

Well, it gets worse.

There were no PC games (except the top 10 releases) on the wall shelves. They were relegated to the floor shelves, along with the strategy guides and lame gadgets and accessories.

So my question is, how do they establish a "Top 10" when they only have 10 games to sell? Easy or hard, depending on your POV.

Sad, my friends; now is the winter of our discount bin.

D Day

Uhgh.

This may not work. The damn nicotine gum won't stay lit.

Conspiracy Theory

I've never been a conspiracy theory nut, but the whole 9/11 thing always seemed to be too convienient.
There may be some justification for that....

Withheld to Protect the Author

Somebody, who shall remain nameless but is my little brother, asked me if I ever hold anything back from this blog: it's pretty boring.

Since the bastard is in Mexico, I'll answer that question. Yes, there's some stuff that happens in my life, thoughts, actions and rich internal life that simply doesn't make it here.

Some stuff is just plain boring (yes, even more so that the little nuggets o' wisdom that makes these virtual pages) and I don't think anyone would be truly interested.

An example: I started shopping at Co-op instead of Safeway because the quality of their products is much higher. Oh wait, did I talk about that here? That and the Co-op I go to has alot more cute women. Yes that's my prime motivating factor in any life-shaking decision.

Other stuff is just way too personal for public consumption. There's stuff that I can joke about, but there are some topics and situations where I'm not comfortable in broadcasting them to the general public (okay the three people who read this site anyway). Some things are just private.

No, no examples forthcoming.

I realize of course that the last verboten topical genre is probably ,the most interesting, the meat on this digital bone if you will.

Maybe someday.

In other news, I have been taking on the long and arduous task of burning all my CDs. It's been a surprising enterprise. On one hand, I'm finding disks that I swore that I had and cherished missing from the collection, some others I never knew I had ever acquired and even a couple I had thought lost forever.

Another pleasant surprise is how much I am enjoying this little device. There was a time where music was the center of my life and existence: when I was a DJ and concert promoter. There was music everywhere, and everything was music.

Somewhere along the line, I lost that. Not just when the business fell over (although that is certainly related) but I think at some point I decided music just isn't important.

What a fool I was.

Certainly now there is the danger that I will spend far too much trying to recapture that time and the associated feeling. Not there is nothing inherently wrong with the exercise itself, it's just that I tend to hyper-focus on these sorts of things. Examples are my $3000 worth of Lego, about half as much on original comic-book sketch art on eBay, and an unknown amount on games (not video games, honest to goodness miniature and paper RPGs).

So I will continue to burn what I have before I even consider purchasing any more. However I am compiling a list of must haves for later.

Project: Stop Smoking

Yes, yes, cryin' wolf and all that. But the plan for this week is to stop smoking. The morning cough is getting a bit worrisome, not to mention I need to save money to cover my rent hikes.....

I did manage to cut down to just over half-a-pack a day. So Monday, I'm going to go smoke free. For those who have not quit smoking (or never started) this is tough. There's actually three addictions to quit.

Nicotine

This is the bio-chemical addition, and is actually the easiest to take care of (although it has the most obvious effects). For that, I have nicotine gum, 4mg of niccy goodness per piece. Take as needed.

I still also have the patches from new-years, although that will be a last resort. I get nasty reactions to then, not to mention the aches and pains. Mind you, the dreams you have on these things rock!

Oral and Digital Fixation

No, not speaking too much and playing video games. It's the habit of something to put in your month and fiddle with. Okay, this subject is leaving me vulnerable to many, many single-entendres.

Regardless, it's still an issue. So for that, I have licorice root and will be buying many, many lolipops. Besides, with the new 'do, I can be all Kojak. Who loves ya, baby? Only problem with the licorice root is the slivers in the lips. On the bright side, it is a mild stimulant.

Time-Based Habit

One of the keys to breaking the habit is to deal with the 'regular times' you smoke. For me, that's when I'm stressed, after I have a meal, play video games and driving.

So with the week off, my stress factor will be greatly reduced (although the boredom thing escalates a tad). Meals actually are easy: constant eating. So I'm getting plenty of snacks. And steak. And beef jerky, peanuts, carrots, crystallized ginger. Oh, and beer.

Video games will be difficult. But as long as I have all the other stuff around I should be okay. Driving on the other hand will be tough. Not sure how I'll handle that.

So I am going smoke-free on Monday. Looking forward to it. Really. If I can stay clean through to Wednesday, I should be good.

No Beach For You!

Nope, all full.

Kinda amazin' really. I called a couple of travel agents and they said there's more poeple in the waiting list to go to Mexico for next week than there are going.

So, looks like a week of doing chores. Slowly. That, and the writing thing, should at least get one chapter drafted.

Maybe a day or two in Banff when the weather is good.

In short a slow, meandering 9 days of slack.

Slide.

Undue Care and Attention

Uhhhhhh. Wow.

So because I'm bored and it's far too hot to consider sleeping, I started to go back to the beginning of this blog and review my life so far.

Now the actual events portrayed here were no surprise, however my elocution of those events seems to have suffered with time. If this trend progresses, I might as well be publishing this on MySpace.

And of course one of the purposes of this endeavor was to hone my writing skills. Instead, it seems to have been blunted.

And the bitterness... oh, the bitterness.

I really do need a vacation.

And yeah, Project:Rocket Surgeon has been shelved. Once again, my apathy wins the day! Or would, if it could be bothered. That's not to say that it won't be revived in some shape or form, but don't bet on it. I'm assembling various theories on why I was so gung-ho: most of them revolving about being single and focusing my energies on "other matters". Or that I go to the gym on a very regular basis and have no energy. Or just disillusioned with gaming in general.

So since it seems I will be beachless next week, maybe I'll give that fiction thing a shot. No promises.

Need a Beach

Gah.

I think the office saves all the emergencies for when I'm on call. Have been called every day since I got the damn thing.

Still can't find any last minutes deals. Except the one where I spend 28 hours on a plane/in an airport. And costs over $3000.

Still I do so love the heat. Summer rocks. So maybe I'll spend the week on the bike path. Or drunk. Maybe both?

Although knowing my luck my appendix will explode at 5:01 PM on Friday. Then the on call phone will ring becuase someone got a hang-nail.

Rent and Blood Pressure

So I got a notification that my rent is going up andother $50 starting in september. Add that to the raise in rent of $30 3 months ago, and Im looking at $960 more a year on rent.

Of course they mention the increase in the cost of housing in our fair city. And everyone else is as well: groceries in particular.

Add to that the huge increase in gas prices and everything is going up in price. Along with my blood pressure.

And work, well, let's just say that they don't take anything like "cost of living" into consideration for their salary increases.

One of the reasons I'm going to Toronto in July is to check out the town and the work situation. Now I'll also look at rent.

Come September, I may have absolutely no reason to stick around. Which is too bad, I like this town, and of course the friendships I have here.

But no girlfriend, a losing salary proposition, higher cost of living etc. means I have a very tenuous link here.

Not to mention I can't stand the drivers and roads in this burg....

"One of Us"

Yep, I am officially a Pod Person now. 4GB worth on a nano.

So I'm in the process of ripping some of my fave-rave CDs. I'm actually quite surprised how compact they are on the Nano. I'm not nearly done but what I have ripped only takes up about a quarter of the little slab o' tunes.

So I'm still playing with it, still trying to find music I would actually purchase on iTunes, and generally trying to get my $300+ worth in the space of 48 hours.

In other news, I have a question. Fratricide is still illegal right?

Thursday after midnight, my little brother calls me from a "gentlemen's club". He wanted to get my cousin's (so his cousin as well) email address. She's a travel agent type person, and he needed to book a flight to Moscow, because one of his Russian clients apparently couldn't enter Canada due to him being in the Russian mob. Go figure. My brother sells lasers BTW. Fricken' Lasers.

Anyway, that was the start. He called back after I went to bed, saying he couldn't send anything from his Blackberry. Could I send the request? So I did.

Then he called again to get me to forward the email I sent our cousin back to him so he could have a record of it.

Now all the while, there's music blaring in the background, girls squealing at him (he's one of those guys who can actually date exotic dancers, bastard) to get off the phone, not to mention he was a bit drunk. Meanwhile I had to go to work the next day.

Bastard. Oh wait, it's mother's day, I shouldn't say that.

Oh, crap it's Mother's Day! Gotta go!

eybard

That's it, I'm buying a new keyboard tomorrow!

I spent a good chunk of my day at work doing documentation, and rarely had a misspelled word or typo.

I've been sending emails and posting on boards all night and can't type a single word without hitting the fraggin' delete key.

For the world at large, the ViewSonic Viewmate keyboard sucks. Even though it's a shallow keyboard, you have to lean on the keys to get them to register, nail the shift key down if you want upper-case, and the keys are set too close together (and I have narrow fingers).

Rant Over.

Sunny Sunday

Another day another bike ride. I love spring and all the, uh, blooms it brings on the bike path.

So I also went to the local geek fest today. I always find those shows a tad boring. Kinda neat, but really it's just a bunch of booths hocking geek toys. Which is good but I have enough.

Some of the artists on hand were pretty good, especially some of the stuff by the guy who does The Oblongs. Stuff was pretty expensive though..

Man I wish I could draw.

So on to the movie review! Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Didn't like it too much. The animation and models were, of course, fantastic. However the character models looked like the came from deep within the Uncanny Valley. Big anime-style eyes, spikey hair etc.

No real "plot" to speak of, just incredibly complex, over-the-type fight scenes. Alot of them. Most of the movie actually.

So when I thought about it, it's exactly like the FF games. Technically (as in game code) brilliant, rich, lush graphics but combat after combat after combat. To the point of annoyance.

But still, technically absorbing, but not something that will make it to the "comfort movie" list.

Bored again, maybe I should go get an iPod after all...

Eeeeeeeee!

I squeeled like a little girl when I saw the link to this new Spore video.
You don't wanna know what I did when I actually watched it.

Pod People

First thing. While driving downtown today, I saw a group of about a dozen people or so, all carrying signs and banners calling for the legalization of marijuana. They crossed against a light and almost got plastered by a bus.

Says it all really.

Secondly, I almost became a pod person. But once again I balked. The price tag for a 4gig nano is not exactly outrageous (a might steep perhaps) but it's not the cost that put me off exactly. When I listen to music, it's in tha car (stereo), at home (computer or piped in through the cable box) or at work (again, on the computer). The only time I need something portable is at the gym. So it's not really worth it.

What I will do is start buying music online. Alot of the stuff I listen to tends to be expensive on CD (Odd Electronica for a start. So a buck a song is reasonable.....

The third thing I'll save for tomorrow. I picked up Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children yesterday and watched it last night. I have mixed feelings on this film....

In the meantime, it's a gorgeous day. I've already been to the gym today, but I think a ride is in order anyway. Besides, I need to work up some appetite for BBQ-ing!

'Tis the season for charred flesh chunks! With sauce!

Rent Rant

Yeah, still bored.

So I thought I would illuminate an going battle for me: my rent. Or rather, the method of payment of my rent.

Now when I first moved into my current place, we had a different management company running it. Granted, the maintenance of the building was less than adequate, but they were pleasant people to deal with, and had no problem if I dropped of my rent cheque the last day of the month with the super.

About 2 years ago, the owner decided to go with a bigger management company. They've been better with the maintenance (outside of the apartments anyway). New carpet in the hallways, better locks on the doors etc.

But when they took over, they insisted on either giving them 6 months worth of post-dated checks or allow them to do automatic withdrawals from the bank. So I gave them the cheques (I've had issues with various organizations continuing to make withdrawals even though I had quit, left or otherwise stopped doing what I was doing).

This was in October.

December rolled around and lo-and-behold, they somehow managed to deposit both December and January cheques. Since this was near Christmas, it put a serious cramp on my travel and gift-buying budget. After I talked to them, they refused to refund the money (despite it was both their and the bank's error) but said they would carry it over until January. Not great, but not worth the hassle of trying to convince the bank that their error cost me money.

The 10th of January, I get a notice that, since I had not paid my rent, they were levying a $100 penalty and if I didn't pay my rent by the 15th (plus the penalty) they would boot me out.

Another round of phone-calls and trips to the head office with the deposited checks, bank statements etc.

And, because I am a moron, I gave them 6 months' worth of cheques in April. September, it happened again. This time, just before I was about to pay for my trip to Italy.

Since then, I have been dropping of my cheque, month by month, at their office. On the last day of the month.

A month ago, we got a new building manager. I haven't actually met her, but have been getting a steady stream of notices under the door. They were polite at first of course: for my convenience could I give them my bank info for direct deposit? Or howzabout 6 months of cheques?

And of course they have become progressively more stern, telling me the only "alternative" they can offer is for me to drop off my cheque at the head office. Which I have no problems doing. Except they want it by the fifteenth of the previous month.

Eventually I may actually met a real live human. Should be an interesting conversation, especially when I tell them about the paint falling (not peeling) off the walls in my bathroom, the leaking faucets, and the non-functional air-conditioning.

I've talked about these with the last three supers. Maybe it's their way of getting me on cheque-free payment.

Bored

Yep that about sums it up.

Bored, bored, bored, bored, smoked too many cigarrettes, bored, bored, bored.

Blech.

Need a beach.

Don't wanna go to bed. I should but I'd just toss and turn.

Nothing on TV. Why was I considering a digital cable box with a PVR (TiVo like thing) again?

Game. No then I will stay up too late.

Nothing to eat. At least that doesn't require pots and pans.

Lalalalala.

La.

Hmmm, have that Triops kit. But i need filtered water. Nope.

Too burned out to read. I already surfed and found nothing of interest.

Maybe I could kick-start my mid-life crisis? Never too early...

Nah, all sports cars drive stick and I don't know how.

The apartment is clean. Too late to vacuum.

This is a long and boring post. Obviously.

Well since I'm this bored, it means I will live in interesting times tomorrow. Chinese curse interesting.

Maybe I should get 40 winks to deal with it.

G'night all. And if you are reading this tomorrow, hope you rested well.

So Much for Karma

I know I said I would not use this forum to complain about work. I know, I know, I know. But gods what a day.

It actually began thirty minutes past midnight. I'm carrying the on-call phone this week and at 12:30 AM this morning it went off. Now understand that I've been doing this for 2 years and the ring-tone on the phone has been the same all this time. So when I hear it, it sets off a Pavlovian reaction of pure fear.

Wrong Number. Calling from California. Didn't get back to sleep until 3 AM.

Now we've had problems with an application at work that reports sales-staff commissions. Last week it busted because of a change in our payroll system that I wasn't notified about. I have a fix ready, but I needed to get a tape-restore done on the database to start from clean data. So they say my request for a restore was completed. I look at the data and nothing has changed. I look at the ticket system again and my request was closed on a completely unrelated issue. It took me the rest of the morning to convince people that it still hadn't been restored, and to get the ticket re-opened so I don't have 1000 phone reps calling me to find out when they can get their commissions.

And because of all this, I didn't have time to prepare the presentation I was to give to the directors and CIO on our new intranet site. After numerous laptop issues (MS Auto update and reboot, never could get it back and running again), the directors unanimously decided that the site provided too much information. So what it was pared down to I could put in a fortune cookie.

As for the quitting smoking thing, I think I would have burned through a whole pack at work but it's very cold, extremely windy and frankly between one thing and the next, I couldn't get 10 minutes to take a break. But I still have managed to smoke 11 of my allotted 13 cigarettes today. I may go over the limit tonight. Or the next hour.

Mmmm, vodka coolers......

Lag!

Eeesh, what a day. Not exactly stressful, not exactly busy, but a series of small tasks and "can you do me a favour" stuff. Add to that my internal clock was out by half an hour: it felt like 2:30, but it was actually 2:00. That sort of thing. So I left half an hour early.

Smoke count (by end of the day anyway) will be 19. So that's down six on day 1. Not much I know, but in 4 days at that rate, I will have quit smoking and strangled my first executive! Bonus!

Planetside is still fun. There's a statistic that shows your kill/death ration (how many enemies you killed, and how many times they killed you). I finally breached the 1/1 ratio!

Er, look, I'm not a homicidal maniac. Really.

Quitting sucks!

Buzz

So a couple very dull things.

Finally got onto the old velocicycle (bicycle in modern parlaiance) this week. It was a good week for biking. Instead of doing 20 minutes at the gym, I went for a 40 to 60 minutes spin down the bike path. Quite nice!

Second thing is, I got my hair buzzed to the skull today. Note I had it chopped, I did not do the duty myself. A hair-salon by my gym was donating $120 to the kid's cancer foundation (or something) so I figured what the heck, I wasn't using it anyways. It did my the mutton-chops went, but I got the impression they weren't doing much for me anyway except catching the errant insect. Still have the soul patch though, otherwise my face my freeze like that. Not sure why I did that exactly, maybe building karma up for yet another attempt at quitting smoking. Karma for something anyway. As I told The Lemming when he said he needed to give away a lucky penny, I need to get lucky. Now, I didn't quite mean it like that, but that single-entendre did have an element of truth in it.

Anyhoo.

I managed to book off the week of the long-weekend in May. Now if I can grab a cheap (meaning $750 or so) all-inclusive somewhere with a beach, I'll be tanning (okay, burning) drinking (okay, nursing hangovers) and romancing (okay, being laughed at) somewhere sunny, warm and conducive to bathing suits.

Note to self: bring extra sun-screen for my head.

The Tolling Bell

(sigh)

Well, looks like yet another component of my computer (my friend, my teacher, my student, my secret lover) is almost out-of-date.

I had heard pretty good reviews on the new Tomb Raider is pretty good, hearkening back to the first two or so installments. After that of course, it just got cheesy (and her boobs got more and more impossible). So I got the demo online.

Now, my video card, once a paragon of polygons, is now a minimum requirement. This is of course the death knell of anything digital. Minimum of course computer-ese for laughable.

So, despite my slick-daddy CPU (dual core baby!), gigs and gigs (or 2 gigs) of memory and more disk-space than I could conceivably need (unless I start to download music and movies), my poor graphics card is about to be relegated to the backup computer.

I'll shed a tear of course, rendered in 3-space.

Now, what's available under $200? Make that $300. $500?

Hackin' It

Despite my varied attempts (some successful, some not) at quitting smoking, currently I am at a pack a day now. I'm noticing that the "morning cough" is now at a tuberculosis level and there's a slight wheeze now. Add to that I'm sucking wind at the gym and on the bike (although I did make it up the hill without hitting the granny gear).

So I think I gotta quit again. For real and permanently this time.

I've tried the patch before, and it has worked. My attempt this January with it resulted in some nasty skin-conditions though. I'm going to try the gum this time around.

Here's the plan. This weekend, I buy a pack of the gum and use it to reduce intake: chew during my habitual times. These are: my "good morning" smoke, my after meal smoke, and my "my gods I'm going to kill someone at the office!" time. Etcetera.

By the end of the first week, I'm hoping to be at half a pack a day, the next week it's all gum baby.

I may be grumpy. Or homicidal. But not suicidal, because that's what I'm trying to avoid here.

The worst of my habit is actually playing computer games. I don't even realize I've lit up until I attempt to use both the keyboard and mouse at the same time and can't because of the coughin' nail wedged between my knuckles.

It will make some interesting blogging at least. Maybe a daily count here? The north-American, male, on-line version of Bridget Jones' Diary. Or something.

Speeling

Wow. Okay i am not liking my new keyboard one bit. Looking at my last post, my gods the typos!

I'm not a spell checker kinda guy. I pride myself on my spelling skills, probably stemming from the trauma of failed spelling tests in grade school. As someone noted yesterday I'm a Bible-style typist (seek and ye shall find) but i can do it rather quickly.

So I may have to hot-swap this out with a keyboard in a drawer somewhere at wok. I mean work. Dammit!

Man, I have lean on the damn shift-key on this thing!

So I was up at 5:30 this morning with a bad stomach so now I have no excuse not to bike into work today.

So fair warning, I'm coming into the office wearing tights!

Ah

So I have a step-niece. So there ya go.

Weekend was thankfully short: no over-exposure to the paternal unit, but was exciting as a turnip.

Other than that, I lead a really dull existance as usual. Those who swing by the Lemming's place already know that we ae bleeding people at work, and alot from upper management. Something big is in the works I think. I'll have to visit the Cancer Committee (those of us who smoke downstairs) and see what the scuttlebutt is.

Back on the regular gym schedule. Makes spring (and warmwather) twice as nice.

That is all. Yes H, I know that's not exciting, but that's life.

Oh Boy. Family.

So I got a call this weekend from my dad. He and the wife are coming to town for my step-neice's (or is it nephew's, I probably should find out) baptism. Which means that for a 1 hour ceremony, I have to entertain him for 72 hours.

I love my Dad, I really do, but one of the reasons I moved to another province....

Let's put it this way: he makes me look like a chatterbox. We'll have the usually "how's work, how's life" conversation for 5 minutes then the rest of the time he'll tell me he's worried about me. About everything. I actually told him I quit smoking (it was true at the time) and he'll find out I started again. So that's about 8 hours worth right there.

then there's the "why don't you come visit me? routine. I'll explain again that it's an 8 hour trip one way if I drive, or a $600+ plane ticket I fly. For Christmas, I'll fly but I willnever drive there in the winter again. Last time, it was the most harrowing experience of my life. He's retired, and very bored, which can be annoying enough, but add to that my memories of growing up largely entail how much he wanted to retire...

So yeah, I have issues with my father. But don't we all?

Don't all answer at once now....

Long Weekend!

Yay! 4 days off! And the first time in about 4 years where I don't have to go into work!

So it's a spring cleaning weekend, kind of. Air out this place man, whooo. 5 months of being cooped up there's a certain pong in the air.

Planetside continues to entertain and frustrate me. Turning into a love-hate relationship, but at least it's a relationship.

Picked up a new keyboard, nothing special. My old one, the "WASD" keys didn't work anymore. Go figure. Also picked up a new joystick. Much fun for blasting things.

Hmmm, maybe gaming is replacing having a love life. But it is cheaper and less confusing.

Laundry, be right back....

So it's not been an exciting week by any stretch, although I have been slacking gym wise. The view hasn't been good lately so my prime motivation is fading away. However after going today, I do need to get back to my regular schedule. I'm in pain.

So Easter proper, I'm going to my Mum's place for dinner. Her husband is away in Mexico for a school thing so my brother is already there. I'm delayed because of the house cleaning thing, which I am avoiding by writing this.

Okay I think the keys on my new keyboard are slightly smaller. Many, many typos...

I'm Baaaaack...

So I'm back from Redmond and the home of the Borg aka Microsoft.

Was a pretty good trip. Seattle is green! Forget how much you miss that when winter sets in.

The conference itself was pretty informative, but it also reinforced my opinion that MS needs to get out more. Now they have some incredibly smart people working there. But you can tell that they are pretty isolated when it comes to coding in a business context: coding products to sell is much different that coding for to support a business (ie they don't sell software).

Can't say much about what was said due to NDA, but overall I'd say they are listening, just hope their marketing department doesn't put the kybosh on some of the things that were suggested.

As for the trip itself, going there was hassle free but the way back.... Our flight from Seattle-Tacoma was delayed because the pilot reported problems with the suspension system on the flight into SeaTac. I did notice passengers grumbling about the hard landing as they got off the plane. An hour goes by, the techs show up, inspect the plane. I actually saw them shrug their shoulders and report nothing wrong. Our landing in Van was smooth as silk. I'm pretty damn sure the pilot botched the landing and then reported mechanical problems to cover up.

So it made us late for our connecting flight home. My two compatriots managed to get a flight right after but it was the last two seats. Now the reason I was last is because my luggage was the last bag to unload, so I had to wait for it. Now as I was hurrying up to catch up with them, I had to pause at an intersection to see which way they went. As I was looking around, some rent-a-cop stops me with a "Hey You!". The best way to describe this guy is podunk white-trash: the mustache and side-burns, the bad teeth, you could see the NASCAR baseball cap and ratty tshirt on the guy. So he comes over and gives me attitude, really being condescending: "Now what does that sign say? And now that other one". I really wanted to say something but slugging a security guard at an airport is a whole universe of trouble. Even thinking about it makes me see red.

Anyway, when I managed to get to the ticket counter, I got put on standby for a flight leaving a couple hours later. Thank the gods I managed to get on. So the whole journey from hotel to front door took 9 hours, when it should have taken 5...

So that was my past week, so not much more to report. Tuned up the bike today (pedal not motor). Start riding into work again, which saves me $16 a day in parking. I know I should walk but I got lazy. Okay lazier.

Regardless off the week "off" (I am dreading my inbox tomorrow) really looking forward to the long weekend.

Away and Gone

So speaking of computer games....

Er, just noticed my computer clock is an hour ahead. Daylight Savings Time has snuck up on me again. I'm a "Fall Back" kinda guy, "Spring Forward" just ain't my scene, man.

Coffee.

So for the past week I've been playing Planetside. Now they started an interesting thing "promotion" of sorts which I think is kinda brilliant.

Planteside is Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter (MMOFPS). So it's like Doom, Unreal Tournament etc. I've never been huge into the genre, but it's a great time waster, is all twitch (which I suck at) but what the hey, sometimes my brain just ain't up to managing a civilization over the scale of millennia.

So I did try the 7-day trial of the game years ago. I think I lasted a couple of hours. Like most MMOs, the more experience you get, the better equipment etc you have access to. So for someone just starting, you get owned (or rather pw0ned). When I first tried it, I usually went to a battle, found an enemy tank, or giant robot, or some guy in powered armour and got pounded. Not fun.

But someone at Sony Online actually came up with a great idea. Give the game away for free, but you can only go so high in experience. They call it the 'Reserves' but really its just cannon fodder.

Of course the idea is that some people will want to move beyond the cannon-fodder stage and sign-up. But I can see alot of kids (and adults) just playing for free. Which means there's alot more people playing.

So now there's actual battles. Some of the vets of the game don't like all these newbs running around and killing them. I think it's great.

In The Real World

So I'm going to the Microsoft campus in Redmond this week. The geeks at work were invited for a one week sit-down with the SQL Server development team: the guys who actually code the thing. There will of course be some 'marketecture' but I'm hoping to get some questions answered, see what the real dilly-o is with 2005 and plunder the MS store.

And that's about it for the week then. Have fun!

Technobabble

Today I am going to talk about my job. Not work i.e. the place I go to everyday but my actual career.

I'm a computer programmer. My 'specialty' (in sofar I have one) is database and database integration. So basically storing information and getting it out correctly.

Today I went to a Sun Java Developers' Conference. Now I don't have a lot of experience with Java, but it is featuring pretty big in the future at work, which is why I went.

Now I don't have enough experience in either Java or C# so I can't make a side-by-side comparison. But what I can comment on are the huge cultural differences.

It strikes my very hard that Java is built by developers for developers. It's pretty much open-source (along with the plethora of tools available for it) which means that it gets alot of review by people who will actually use it. From what I know and see, it's not a silver bullet by any means, it has had it's past face-plants (anyone remember the "Java Appliances" of the mid-90s?) and still has a bad rep of being slow and clunky to deploy.

Microsoft on the other hand is very, very closed on how it actually implements its development languages and tools. Whenever I've met with a Microsoft rep, the sales pitch is "It's Easy!", which never really turns out to be the case. Granted, .NET has made leaps and strides with it's new IDE, but the impression from my fellow geeks (and me) is that it's finally doing what was promised 10 years ago.

Add to that, MS has its "stars": Bill Gates, Steve Balmer etc. The Java community, not so much. It's a "we're all in this together!" mentality. Add to that, Java "culture" has it's jokes (granted, very geeky) and sense of humour. Microsoft on the other hand is very straight-faced (at least publicly). And the approach seems to be "Don't worry, we know what's best for you, we're Microsoft!".

Now add to that the second delay to Vista. Rumour has it that they need to re-write up to 60% of their code: the part they wrote in .NET. And there's alot of anonymous criticism from (supposed) MS developers and testers, rumours of major management purges etc. Kind of reminds me of IBM 15 years ago or so.

But as a programmer, the biggest difference is the way they approach technology. Java is still pretty much Java. Sure, it's changed a bit but the basics are the same. All the tools work off the core Java with no problems (okay some problems as I found out today). MS on the other hand has the notion that everyone on the planet should replace all of their software every five years; the operating system, the user applications (Office, etc) and their programming languages. If you don't, you don't get the benefits. And the backlash is starting I think.

I will never be a fanboy (okay, never a ravening, crusading fanatic). The right tool for the right job. But I think MS's strategy is backfiring in the name of trying to keep a monopoly.

What did Princess Leia say? "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers ..."

Rocket Surgeon

So a couple of things hit me today.

1) I should go back to learning to write games in Java. Apparently the market is huge.
2) I should not base it on Rocketmen!. I do have an idea or two for a space-battle game that have been knocking around notebooks for years and with the stuff I saw today, would be very easy to write.

Where Did My Chin Go?

What the hell? I know I had a chin somewhere...

I should probably comment on the facial hair. I started the sideburns (or as some rakes would put it, "thigh-ticklers") a couple of months back.

The soul-patch is about a month old now, still needs some cultivation.

This is what happens when you break up withsome who absolutely hates facial hair.

No gym today. I felt fine yesterday, but today, well lets just say I won't be doing any sitting tonight. Ow.

The Hat

Or rather, The Hat.

Let us begin at the beginning. For in this case there is a beginning. Cast your eye to 21 years ago. Look at the fashions, listen to the music and cringe. Sorry. But is is 1985.

Now this was my Junior year at high school. I was in band. Not in a band, but the school band. And every year, the school band goes on a trip, playing at schools around, well Saskatchewan.

This year was different though, We did a tour through North and South Dakota. Big time! Now the usual routine was that we would bus to the school we were playing at the night before, make camp in the gymnasium and play the next day. So natually, when you get 100+ high school students with minimal adult supervision, they run amok.

Now while amok-ing at one school, we discovered they had a fairly well-provisioned drama class. That meant costumes galore. We broke into (okay, we were teenagers) the costume room and rampaged, trying on stuff, etc. And that's when I found The Hat.

It was a felt top-hat, in pretty good condition. I don't know why, but I took it. Mr clean-cut goody goody two-shoes stole something. Hard to believe.

So through the years, the hat became my party hat. Every New Year's Eve party, any social gathering of any significance, the hat would come with me. I even wear it skiing, weather permitting.

Which brings us to yesterday.

After 21 year of wear and tear, it's pretty shapeless (although recognizably a top hat). It's dusty, has stray fur, hair (some from my head), makeup (from halloween costumes) ingrained in the fabric.

But I still wear it skiing.

And I always get comments. Sometimes sarcastic shouts of "nice hat!" but mostly genuine comments of "nice hat!" or "I like your hat". And some of these are from cute women.

So yeah, I wear the hat, I get noticed. At 6'2", wearing a 8" tall hat does this. It goes where I go and I always make an impression, for good or bad, wherever I go.

It's probably the one thing I own that actually has sentimental value.

I love my hat. And if you get that, you get me.

I'm guessing that not alot of people get that.

Pass the Advil

Skiing, was blast!

I'm always nervous the first time out, and quickly decide to only go green runs. But as usually, those I went with were a tad more experienced so I hit blues to keep up. They were a great bunch (and I met half of them for the first time this morning). Hopefully get one more in before the snow melts completely.

And as usual by the end of the day I was 1000% times improved. Why do I always start three weeks before the end of the season?

Anyway, I am going to be a very sore puppy tomorrow.

Soooo tomorrow I will tell you about my hat. The Hat. Yes it deserves the bolds. But right now I'm sore, tired, hungry, thirsty and sore. More tomrrow.

Scrub-a-dub-dub

Random Thought

My ex used to complain that I was always doing laundry. My typical response was that's because I'm always wearing clothes.

So doing laundry tonight, I'm thinking I need to move to a place that requires less clothing. Cuz wearing less clothes here just ain't gonna fly...

Shrinkage.

Breaking Things

Okay, been invited to go skiing this weekend. Haven't done it yet this season, only went twice last season.

Looks like I get to find out exactly how well my leg workouts are going.

This may hurt....

Also made final arrangements for the family reunion this July. Should be fun, haven't seen some of my cousins in decades! Of course it means I'll have to put up with the three crazy aunts with the inevitable "Why Aren't you married? I know someone who would be perfect for you!". Mind you, both my brothers (who are also single) will be there, so at least it will get diluted a bit.

And I went to bed early last night (the previous night I couldn't get my brain to shut up until 3am). Considering making that a habit. Must be getting old.

Work is getting odd. With three people on vacation (one for the month of April) for the next while, I've had to tick off a couple of project managers to tell them I simply do not have the time to lead up another couple of projects for the next few weeks. Not that I mind doing that, but it can cause friction in the workplace (and the associated friction burns).

Well, got to go do a leg workout....

My Name is Legion

So after the other day's "Conversation" post, I thought about who exactly was talking. In it, it's all "Me, Me, Me" (some of my friends may be used to this by now).

So I'm no psych major or anything (I have enough undergrad degrees thanks) but know about things like Ego, Id and Superego etc. But I think I've been able to identify five distinct voices in my head. I've given them names.

DaVinci, the creator. He's the one who comes up with the hair brained schemes, the novels never written, the projects never completed. Not the loudest voice in the bunch, but the most easily distracted. And the one usually that keeps the others up to 2 AM coming up with universes, stand-up routines, delusions of grandeur etc.

Ludd, the appetite. Again, not loud, but certainly persistant. Speaks only in nouns. Has a well-developed appreciation for technology. Generally good-natured, except when it comes to smoking, then he can get very, very insistent.

Hal, the logical. Always thinking, always positing scenarios. And also the critic, he he always yammering advice to everyone. Can be a bit mean.

Cromwell, the taskmaster. A classic Superego. He takes on all the responsibilites. Used to be the leader of the pack, but has been subsumed over the past decade or so after some bad decisions. Always strives to 'do good', but can be shouted down quite easily depending on the situation.

Zen the mystic. Almost mute until a few years ago, he's the one that "goes with the flow" and brings calm to the rest. Can take it too far at times, turning into a slacker rather than a serene being.

Of course the interplay of these personalities is always interesting.

Zen and Cromwell are always at odds, but can manage trade-offs (with Hal negotiating). Zen's ascendency is directly attributable to Cromwell's loss of total control.

Hal is pretty much the boss at work (with Cromwell making sure he keeps on track), although DaVinci is often called in when straight-forward reasoning doesn't work. The three can do amazing things working in concert, but this is usually short-lived as DaVinci gets side-stepped by potentials, drags Hal along for analysis capabilities, and leaves Cromwell seething. Then Ludd pipes up and demands nicotine.

DaVinci and Hal get along well, often too well. They come up with some great ideas with some good thought to execution, but often get blindsided by Zen (or sometimes Ludd).

Ludd is a nice guy, always willing to pipe up, but is very easily distracted. However he can totally spaz and nobody gets any work done until they shut him up. While the urge to play games etc usually comes from him (and most can agree, although Cromwell is known to get annoyed) actually obtaining new distractions goes through the whole committee.

The one thing that all can (usually) agree on is the gym. Cromwell thinks it's a great way to stay in shape, Hal likes the 30 minutes spent on the bike reading, DaVinci pretty much takes over cognative functions during weight training, Zen thinks it's a great way to meditate and Ludd gets to look at... well you get the idea.

Anything else though, there's never a consensus.

Internal Dialogue

Nothing to report, but here's a mere sampling at what goes through my mind.....

Me: Okay, work is done, I'm on my way home, what's the plan for the evening?
Me: Food.
Me: Well, yeah obviously...
Me: Sushi!
Me: No, no sushi, I ate out twice already this weekend.
Me: Noodles!
Me: No! I said we're eating in tonight!
Me: But we don't have anything to eat in the house!
Me: I went shopping yesterday, there should be...
Me: What? All you bought was tea
Me: No I got other stuff...
Me: Yeah. Carrots.
Me: Not rice again?!?
Me: What's wrong with rice.
Me: Nothing, just boring that's all.
Me: No it's not, I have lots of sauces and stuff...
Me: Had. You ran out remember...
Me: .. and forgot to buy more yesterday.
Me: Pizza!
Me: No! No pizza! No noodles! No sushi! Just rice!
Me: Awwww!
Me: Too late, already on the stove. So, what's the plan after supper.
Me: Dishes.
Me: Ew.
Me: Well you were supposed to do them on the
weekend. What did you do instead?
Me: Er, shopping?
Me: And then?
Me: Ummm....
Me: You know what you did. Unreal....
Me: Okay, I played Unreal Tournament 2004...
Me: And lost...
Me: Yes. I lost. Because somebody doesn't know how to lead a target...
Me: We could go to the gym!
Me: We went Saturday and Sunday. Two days on, one day off. Today is the day off.
Me: But it's Monday!
Me: ... hottie day!
Me: Yeah But I'm still sore from...
Me: Wah, wah, wah. You never have a good workout Mondays because all the stations are full but that's not the point. Remember Red Sonja?
Me: Oooo.
Me: Yeah.
Me: Jeez, what's the point? Not like you ever would do anything about it.
Me: What do you mean?
Me: Remember a couple of weeks ago? Two cute girls? They actually talked to you?
Me: Yeah, so. I haven't seen them since.
Me: That's the bloody point! You didn't follow up at all. An open, no, two open invitations to make converstion. And what do you do?
Me: Now that's just....
Me: You just work on your chest and back. Real ladykiller you are. A player's player....
Me: Potstickers!
Me: Shut Up!
Me: So if we don't go to the gym, what do we do?
Me: The dishes?
Me: Besides that!
Me: Unreal Tourn...
Me: No.
Me: Galactic Civi...
Me: No.
Me: Chicken Balls!
Me: No!
Me: Ummmm...
Me: Hmmm....
Me: Porn?
Me: No!
Me: Leia's Metal Bik...
Me: No! Shutupshutupshutup!
Me: What then?
Me: *sigh* the gym I guess...
Me: Yay!
Me: Boo!
Me: Rice is ready!
Me: Groan!!!

So Yeah, I'm Surfing

Oh my, three links posted today. That's not a record but a very good indication of how productive my day has been.

Surfing counts as church right?

Er, okay publishing seems to be screwed up again.

This Just In...

Alright I'm a geek, I find this disturbing yet somehow...well you get the idea. Not safe for work (although it does depend on where you work.
Leia's Metal Bikini

Okay, chicks who cos-play rock.

Juicy enough for ya H?

Good News Everyone!

Looks like Futurama is being revived (and not in the year 3000). Billy West is the voice of fry and his blog/BB says it all....
Second Posting Down

Of course, ths is because The Lemming bought another boxed set last week!

Llllllllinkoooooo!

Hehe, an oldie but a goodie for those who haven't seen it.
Troops!

V for Vindicated

Alright, last night went for a few brews (sans green food colouring) with the boys, then went to see V for Vendetta. Pretty good movie if a little disjointed (and a hollywood ending).

But sure enough, had a whole row of young whipper-snappers yapping through the entire movie, despite the fact that three patrons (including myself) told them to shut the hell up.

Hmmm, maybe if the theatre issued a one-shot taser to one in every ten patrons, things would be quieter (after the initial series of zzzzzzzzap! Yeow! ).

Another dull day today. Gym, and, well that's pretty much it. May have to go to Best Buy and drool over toys.

I Need a Beach

Man, I need a beach. Not just a vacation (which ain't happeneing until July) but a place to sun, swim, eat and be merry.

Looking through old vacation photos ain't no help neither.

Winter blues. This is actually the upswing where I'n no longer near-suicidal, but still somewhat blue. And bored more than anything.

Hmmm, tomorrow is Green Beer day. Ah yes alcohol! To quote a wise sage, the source and solution to all of life's problems.

Ah well, off to the gym. Oh wait!

New girl at the gym, who for very obvious reasons I have dubbed Red Sonja. Firey red hair, body builder body without being too hard and, well, let's just say a chainmail bikini would look very fetching. Doesn't hurt she wears a sports bra and tights/shorts. Grrrrrowwwwrrrrr!

Hell's Donkeys, I need a girlfriend...

Movies, Pirates and Pirate Movies

So let's see, the movie moguls and the **AA types are screaming that theatre revenue is down from 5% to 9% (depending who does the reporting) over last year. And they are, of course, blaming piracy.

Now I love going to the movie theatre to see a movie. A good movie. A few months ago, I managed to get 20 $5 movie theatre passes because I spent at least that much a year on the theatre.

Haven't used any of them yet. No reason to. No movies I would be willing to spend the cash (or coupons) on.

And why should I? Over the past few years, the movie mills have been slavering at the teat of new technologies: DVD, Pay-Per-View, Video on Demand. So instead of either a) seeing it in the theatre or b) hoping, after a year at least, that it will be released on VHS, I have a plethora of mediums to choose from. So going from most expensive to least expensive (but also from release date on) here are my options:

1) Full price, first run theatre
2) Second Run theatre
3) Purchase the DVD
4) Rental
5) Video on Demand
6) Pay per view
7) Premium Cable movie channel
8) And (maybe) on regular broadcast TV

So why, if I don't want to go to a specific theatre at a specific time and pay $13 plus snacks (making it $25 for one person) should I feel guilty for not going? I have plenty of options. And working in the business (okay the distribution end) I know for a fact that the movie companies get their cut for rentals, PPV, VOD etc. And they are very aggressive at getting the movies on your television.

But the most significant reason I simply don't go to the theatre is the audience. The morons who chat like they are in their living rooms. The cell phone talkers. The idiots who ask what's going on to all and sundry. Because they are easily confused by today's intricate plots, subtle characterization and unpredictible story lines.

So with the frustrations of the theatre, the easy and cheaper access to several media to see it after release, not to mention there just isn't anything worth seeing lately, why should I go to a theatre?

And I don't download movies. Not much point really. The risk is too high that there's something malicious hiddin in there somewhere. Or it's corrupt, or it's of very crappy quality. Or I may get sued.

Yes, that is a deterrent for me. I have really, really bad luck when it comes to stuff like this (remeber, two tickets in 2 hours?). Hell, I'd get sued for downloading an old episode of Gilligan's Island, forget about a full length feature film.

So here's my recommendations:

1) Chop theatre ticket prices by one third. And the snack bar prices by half. Then people may be willing to show up. And I could tolerate the twenty minutes of commercials.
2) Actually enforce some of things we took for granted in the theatre (being quiet, turn off your phones etc). I am more than willing to script and animate some very biting commercials for this. when was the last time you saw an usher in a theatre?
3) Stop making tired old crap. Indie films are getting more and more attention the past few years. Take a little risk and fund some of these folks.
4) There is nobody on the planet who is worth $10,000,000 for twelve week's work. You can reduce the cost of production by using cheaper actors, who will do just as well as the 'A-list' celebs.
5) Release movies over the course of the year. The summer blockbuster is dead. Why do studios insist on fighting for the consumer dollar twice a year when they can release something good in the spring? Moronic.
6) Reduce DVD prices by a couple of bucks. Really, it costs pennies to produce one. Get it into the price range of an impulse buy rather than a day's wages.
7) And for that matter, drop the price of those DVDs that are considered 'small yield'. $50 for 'The Seven Samurai' is insane. There are alot of films I would love to get on DVD but just can't justify spending the money (and I seriously consider downloading them).

Times are changing folks. Change or die. And if you think it's bad now, wait a couple of years. Imagine a market where the competition isn't the other big studios, but the small group of individuals who put together a full length feature film in their garages, basements and backyards and sell it for $2 a pop online. SFX? No problem, I could cook up some myself. Editing? Hey digital editing suites are coming included on most operating systems today. Actiing? Hells, I've seen better on stage at my local playhouse (and in the office for that matter). As for scripting, well, writers are a dime a dozen nowadays....

So Ya Want Juicy, Huh?

How does this grab ya?

Er, it was a photo of me. Real sexy. Dammit, musta broke Blogger again....

Fricken' Cold

Argh. I can't shake this damned thing.

I'm fine for a day. Then I'm sick for a day. Then I'm okay again until I try to do something, and my stomach grinds itself into knots. Damn and blast.

But for the first time in months, whn I woke up the sun was actually above the horizon at a decent degree. Which is always a bonus. And it also means 'Spring Forward' is coming, and it takes me a couple of weeks to adjust again.

It's Monday, which means it's eye-candy day at the gym. Yay! But it's also an abs and legs day. Boo! It's the most boring of my workouts and produces the least results. Damn flab.

Spore, Hangover and Coffee

First and foremost, I get accused of being a geek-enabler. Video, games, movies, books etc, I loan them out, a knowing, evil smile on my face as I know have made a healthy, creative and vibrant person waste a colossal amount of time on geeky pursuits.

But sometimes it works the other way. The Lemming sent me this.

Oh. My. Gods.

Now if I had a rating system for games I haven't played and haven't been released, it would be, from lowest to highest:

Never, ever will this hit my hard drive.
I may play it if the CD comes embedded in a box of Cheerios.
I'd play it if someone gave it to me.
I may pick it up when it hits the bargain bin.
I'd be willing to pay full price for it after it's released.
Heck I'll pick it up the day of release.
Wow, I'm pre-ordering that!

And now a new category: Holy Crap, I will kill, maim and torture to get my hands on a buggy alpha release of this!

And I'm hung-over today. Bar after work, a hockey game and then a bar after the game. Eeesh. Not much of note actually happened, but what the heck, a night out with a two-day hangover never hurt anyone.

Coffee. Coffee is key....

Ill but not Bad

So I'm getting another cold. Yesterday was hell, as you feel it creeping up on you, your nose getting more and more 'liquid', your intestines clench etc.

So I went home, sucked back a liter of juice, a couple of Vitamin C tablets, a pot of Echinacia tea and went to bed at 8:30.

So I'm stuffed up this morning but over-all feel okay. Work will fix that though.

No, not very interesting, but sometimes I forget just how much a good night's sleep makes you feel. Obviously, I didn't even start playing GalCiv2.

Hmmm.... half an hour before I need to go to work.... maybe a couple of turns....

Correction

Actually I just went over it again and am getting a $311 refund.

Never mind.

Death Carries a Calculator

So guess who just did their taxes?

There's Death, there's Taxes, and there's also Death by Taxes. I owe a grand. Which ain't bad after the first crack at it had me owing over $2500.

Yes there's no time like Tax Time (cue cheesy 50s instructional film music). The smile and far-away look in the eye as Joe Taxpayer contemplates what he'll do with that fat refund check. Maybe he'll buy that boat he's been eyeing! Or that glitzy new American Made automobile! Why, he'll be the envy of his neighbors! And just imaging Bob's expression when Joe pulls into work in that fine automobile. Of course Mrs. Taxpayer may have a little surprise herself! Good thing that tax return can pay for that new crib! Congratulations Joe, and Joe Jr.! (show film flickering, the sound warbling and the lighting burning a hole through the celluloid.)

So after that wonderul bit of news, I tried to figure out how much more in RRSP contributions I needed to make to break even. Turns out I would have to double my contributions. Who needs to pay rent? Maybe I can carjack Joe Taxpayer and live in his Caddy.

As for RRSP contributions, I don't buy it. Sure, it takes off a little bit of tax, but they ding ya later, for more if you get a decent return on investment. They get ya comin' and goin'. Not to mention that RRSPs are a bit of a gamble. There's no guarantee of any kind of returns, and all that needs to happen is another bubble 'n' burst in the next thirty years to bring any of those 'investments' to rock bottom. And I'm no good at investing. I'm the kind of guy who puts a buck in the change machine and gets back three quarters. So I'll just spend it now, and hope my kids will supp...

Uh oh.

It's All About Pacing, Baby!

Sunday morning. Nothing like a Sunday morning to drink a pot of coffee.

So yesterday, went to the gym, ate at Burger King (which I do once in a while, then regret it), washed some clothes, cleaned the carpeted half of my place, and played GalCiv2 for a bit.

I also started watching the Firefly series again. Man I love that show.

Ran into a guy at the gym who did time in Fort McMurray (you do time there, there's no other way to express it) when I was there. Kinda weird in that I keep running into people from my sordid past these past couple of months. See what happens when you break up with a girl who books your social calender solid?

Hmmm, maybe I should explain about the cleaning routine. You see, my apartment is basically in two halves: the living room and bedroom is the 'carpeted half' and the kitchen, bathroom and hallway is the 'linoleum half'. Over a weekend I'll do one half per day. The carpeted half tends to get messy: books (okay, mostly comic books) various doodads I've collected since the last cleaning etc need to be collected and put somewhere. And this weekend I officially ran out of space on my bookshelves. So I need to buy another bookshelf. And find a place to put it.

Now the 'linoleum half' is just a pain in the keister. Without a dishwasher, I just do dishes once a week (not like I cook or anything, just coffee mugs, the occasional bowl and maybe a plate or two). And of course there's the mopping. It's not like I leave everything until it starts to evolve new lifeforms (er, maybe once in a while) but I just find cleaning such a chore. Which is probably why it's called a chore. I hate chores.

So that brings up today's plan. Try and resist the urge to start up GalCiv, maybe watch another episode of Firefly, clean the bathroom, then get it dirty again, head to the gym, pay for those tickets, drop off the dry cleaning, do the dishes, clean the kitchen, mop and maybe do my taxes. Exciting, no?

Yup, I'm a swingin' bachelor.....

As Promised!

Linko! to a photo gallery from the party last week. Minus the traffic tickets.
Heroes

Fuel Status Marginal

Yawn...
Okay I've had no energy this past week. Granted my gaming habits may have something to do with it, but I've been walking around in a light pink fog all week, even when I got to bed on time. Maybe I had a nervous breakdown and didn't realize it?

Looks like a chores weekend. Cleaning, laundry, taxes (ugh), dry cleaning and paying the bills. Fun stuff, I know. So those of you who live vicariously through me (you know who you are) may want to take the weekend off.

Gym can wait until tomorrow though.

GalCiv2: AKA Software Insomnia

Okay, I'm writing a review of Galactic Civilizations 2: The Dread Lords because I'm to go to a play tonight. Understand that for the past week, I've been coming home from work, putting a Pizza Pop in the microwave and starting the game. Next thing I know, it's way past my bedtime, the Pizza Pop has congealed in the nuker and I still can't hit the 'Quit' button.

And if I do that tonight, I won't make the play.

GalCiv2 is a classic 4X (eXplore, eXploit, eXpand and, um, eXfoliate) turn-based strategy game along the lines of Masters of Orion, the Civilization series and, well, GalCiv1. And since it's in space I of course had to try it out. So after a digital purchase and download (c'mon, c'mon, c'mon! Download already you piece of ....) I fired it up and got invaded by another civilization before the first year had ended.

Alright, check the forums for strategies. Nope, too new, everyone is learning. Okay go through the tutorials. Okay I think I got the grasp of this. Start a new game....and Earth is invaded by aliens within a year. Alright read the actual manual. Oh so the default spending is 50% but to get everything working at top capability, max spending to 100%. Ah okay. Start up another game, crank up the spending, go into debt by the end of the year, have my colonies rebel by the end of the second year and assimilated by angry robots by year 3. Doing better at least!

Start up a new game, do stuff to get my population up and be happy by researching those technologies and I have 5 colonies humming along by the end of the year, okay, now let's... oh wait, another race is demanding my lunch money. Screw you alien scum! My, what a big fleet he has, and here's me with no military to speak of....

And that's the game really; you need to balance spending, popularity, technology, efforts into building economic output, military, your influence on other races, your influence with your own people, deal with moral dilemmas (dilemmae?), negotiate, lie, cheat, steal and outright beg from other civilizations including the genetically-modified warrior squirrels (no, I'm not kidding).... There are so many things to balance!

Which is great!

One of the really neat things in this game is the construction of your ships. You can customize things like weapons, defenses, sensors etc, but there is also a huge catalog of cosmetic add-ons you get for free to make your ships as cool as you want them to be. this is turning out to be a huge hit for the fans out there. I've been avoiding it since I got City Of Heroes and played with the costume creator for an entire month. Bloody addictive personality.

The AI is really solid (almost too solid at the harder levels) and the devs make no apologies: a computer can micro-manage much better than a human (especially me). And although you can repeatedly hit the 'Next Turn' button, every time you do, the uneasy sensation that you are forgetting to look at something grows...

The learning curve is pretty steep, and although the manual gets into the mechanics, it takes some time to figure what does what (and what side-effects they have) to get a civilization going, and for some that will not be an appealing feature. Even when you do get over the hump (which I did recently by dominating the universe, not by force, but by selling cheap trinkets, pushing diet soda, and making sure out technologically enhanced pop-stars make regular appearances on alien worlds. In other words I destroyed their cultures with my own! I felt a little dirty, but dammit I won.) there is still alot that can happen with random events, planet placement, races, events etc etc. No game plays the same twice and, here's the main thing, no strategy will work every time!

So as a game it's pretty damn good. Add to that, there is some very tongue-in-cheek messages (one race invaded me because I tried to sell them diet cola), some really great graphics you have a winner.

Now there are some cons here. The interfaces can get a little confusing and may not work as well as expected. But I'm putting together a list for the forums, which by the way, the devs are very active on and have already implemented some suggestions in a patch or two. It's a typical indy-developer viewpoint getting more and more presence: they know who buys their games, they know there will be problems, and they know they are fixable. This is a refreshing change from the big-corp method of 'Behold, our great and innovative sequel! Tremble and be amazed!' attitude.

So overall, this is a fantastic, turn-based strategy game in a day and age where the genre has been declared dead. It's not without it's warts, but frankly it's a helluva lot more polished than many of the 'offerings' from the big boys over the past couple of years. So it looks like I have a new source of sleepless nights for the next while (besides the other reasons).

Oh, and if any of the devs are reading this, who came up with the confirm message for quitting to be "Are you sure you want to quit? A few more turns won't hurt..."

Bastards.

this is not a post

I know, I said pictures. They are coming, probably on the weekend.

Galactic Civilizations 2 is a good game.....

Introducing: "The Red Light"

Well, since Blogger is not working for uploading images, here's a link to one:
The Red Light!

Busted

Okay, I'll get some party details and photos on later today, but first a little story and the pre-party events.

I drove into work yesterday so I could get home in time to get ready and make the party by 7 pm. Because of the odd street arrangements where I live, I cannot turn into my street from the main road during rush hour. It's a left turn against traffic.

But to get to my place then, you have to drive up four more blocks and wait at a stop light with no left-turn signal. So I usually end up waiting for four or five 'cycles' which is just a pain in the ass.

However, just before the turn-in to my street, there's a pedestrian signal with a full red light. If someone is crossing, I usually take the opportunity to turn left.

Yesterday, the cops were waiting. $115 ticket. There were only two of them, they busted the next guy, and while I was waiting to be written up four more cars made the same illegal turn.

So, I get home, swear a bit, get ready for the party and leave. On the way to the party I noticed there were cherries flashing nearly every second block with people pulled over.

Half way there I see them in my rear view mirror. I got pulled over for tossing a cigarette butt out the window. Fine for littering: $115.

But town hall assures that the Calgary Police do not have a ticket quota.

Right.

So add to that the hotel room ($167), the drinks for the evening ($60), the stuff I had to get for the costume ($150, but it's all reusable for biking, roller blading etc).

Grand Total: $547. For one night.

If I had cashed in the change in the jars I keep on my dresser, that would have been a decent week in Mexico.

But at least I had fun last night. Now I can't afford fun until May.

Pictures coming forthwith.

This Station is Now The Ulti..hack..kah...kah....blech

Ohhh crap this cold/flu hit me like a ton of bricks last night. Lost my voice, my head feels like a balloon on a stick. I sound like Darth Vader. The phlegm kind of spoils it though.

Called in sick this morning. Then I crashed until noon. I'm going to have to actually go outside to get some good drugs....

Gym was okay last night, just another day. Looks like the day before was an just a blip.

Okay, put on clothes, start car, drive to drug store.

Oh Doh (sniff)....

Argh. Looks like I've caught the bug that has flattened many a co-worker today (including the Lemming).

I do not want this to spoil the party for Friday, even if it means I have to take two days off of work.

Women. In. Tight. Outfits. Drinking.

Hehehcough.....cough, cough, cough.....hack! Bleh.....

On a slightly more jovial note, I picked up Galactic Civilizations: Dread Lords last night. From what I got to play (after downloading the the much dreaded Stardock DRM software) it's a very cool game, what Masters of Orion 3 should have been.

So, in spite of being ill, getting a new game and the fact we have a tonne of snow here, which brings out the loonies, I'm still going to the gym.

Can't disappoint the ladies now can I?

More Gym Experiences

Huh.

Did I hit an 'easy on the eyes' threshold or something in the past couple of days?

Get this. Went to the gym today after work (okay after dinner). And, good lord in heaven, it was hottie central. I think they've been recruiting.

Again, I'm on the bike reading my book. A very cute, very tall girl asks me if she has to sign up to use a bike. I tell her no, it's a free for all and she then says 'Great!', sits on the bike beside me and starts asking me about how long I've been there, how busy it gets etc. We then continue to say 'Hi' to each other as we cross paths during the non-cardio workout stuff.

Then while taking a break between sets on the bench, a girl looks straight at me and tells me she loves my T-shirt (the one that says Every time you download music off the Internet, God kills a kitten) and asks what I think of hers.

It said something, can't quite recall what, I got distracted. Again, smile and 'Hi' the rest of the night.

I'm not reading anything into this except that they were being friendly. Just understand this never, ever, ever happens to me!

I am really looking forward to the party on Friday. And going to the gym every waking hour of every day for the rest of my life.

Bored....

Bored, bored, bored, bored.

No games to play, if I look at another programming manual today my brain will leak out of my ears (and it leaves stains on my shirt).

TV sucks. Too late to watch another Kurasawa movie.

I could have a drink.....

Nah, school night.

Bored.

Okay someone ask me a question. Anything. Any and all questions will receive a thorough, honest and complete answer.

Ho-hum.

Oh, going to a costume party this weekend. Put together a snazzy outfit. The theme is '2nd Rate Superheroes'. Made up a character called 'Red Light'.

Tights are involved. I will post pictures. You have been warned.

Booooooooored......

When the hell did Saturday Suck?

Yikes. Okay here's the sitch.

Went to gym today, as I usually do on a Saturday afternoon before I get groceries (yes I am a man of routine). While on the bike, I was, as I always do, reading a book. In this case, I was finishing up A Long Way Down by by Nick Hornby.

Much to my great surprise, the girl beside me asked about the book. I told her it was okay, but I though Hornby's last few books haven't been his best. She told me she agreed, then we started chatting about other authors (Irving Welsh, Chuck Palahniuk etc).

Then she asked me out for coffee.

Stunned!

So anyway, we arrange to meet at a place we both knew at 7 tonight!

Man I hate being stood up... Even cancelled poker for that. Didn't get a phone number (and didn't give her mine).

Java For Gaming? Maybe in 1990

So I've been perusing Killer Game Programming In Java. It looks like a great course for learning game programming (they cover alot of stuff and how you actually design and code it) but when I look at screen shots for 3D rendering... well it seems a tad archaic.

So looking at some "3D" games on the web written in Java, I have to conclude that game programming won't get further than mobile phones unless they do some serious stuff with 3D. So I'm not sure how to proceed with Rocket Surgeon. Maybe I'll work up the model first and see which way to adapt (Java or C#). Have to learn both anyways.

Post 50!

No I'm not 50 years old.

The funniest thing I have seen. Ever

15 Minutes of Slightly Less Obscurity

Ooo! Oooo! OOOOOO!

No not that.

Regina is reading my poem on her podcast tomorrow!
Regina Lynn

Not Gina Lynn, which is another entity entirely. Don't ask how I know.

Man it's cold outside! No gym for me. Just listening to a podcast, eating the nearly-expired food products and surfin'.

Fer example: Consumating. No, it's not a dating site, it's just a total waste of time. So in many ways, it's similar to a dating site. In my experience anyway.

Countdown to V-Day

Hehehe.

I'm single on Valentine's Day!

No Pressure!

Although I have two application pushes, two committee meetings and laundry to do, so there's pressure just on a different gasket.

Which may blow, by the way.

Okay, I know that's not much to report, but I've been leading a very dull existence lately.

Ooo! I learned a good come-back if you meet a girl on Valentine's and she asks why don't have a girlfriend:

"But I just met you!"

I may have to go out just to try that! Although it may work in the gym....

Samurai Theatre!

Haaaaaaaiiiiiiiii-yaaaaaaaaaa

Boo-ya! The Kurasawa Samurai collection of DVDs hit the door today!

Man I forgot how long Seven Samurai was. 3 hours! Cool!

Okay, okay, have to pace myself......

Grrrrrrrrrr.......

Okay, slap Yojimbo into the player!

Kampai!

Online Order, Snail-mail Return

Gah! Damn and blast.

Probably the most frustrating thing about ordering online; which provides an almost orgasmic sense of instant gratification is that it takes bloody forever for stuff to arrive.
Example: On the 3rd I ordered yet another Java Book for work (okay to learn about Java and help along the Rocket Surgeon project) and for fun classic Samurai movies!

And it still hasn't cleared the sortation plant in Ontario.

Damn and blast!

Now I have ordered stuff before and payed the extra for the "super-duper delivery" which is supposed to hit you mailbox in 3 days.

What it actually means is, you may get it a day ahead of schedule.

And with my luck the book will show up on Friday and the DVDs sometime next month....

Augh!

Okay work is getting nuts.

Everyone is busy and overloaded, we are really short-staffed and now we're snapping at each other over the dumbest things. I freaked out on someone who made me a great pie this past weekend. Lemon meringue pie! Dammit.

The kicker is I work with almost all of my friends in town here and it's just getting so bloody stressful. Gah, I need a job, I need a real job! I need a job that pays. I need a job, I need a good job...

One that satisfies my artistic needs.

Not Lost, But Certainly Confused Weekend

Hey All:

Not much to report this weekend (after the last few that's a good thing). Drinks on Friday, drinks (many, many more drinks) on Saturday watching Extreme Elimination Challenge. No wait, that's not it.

There's two guys in an Octagon. They pummel each other. First one to make the other guy's eye bleed wins. You know. Good fun had by all!

Sunday I went to a Rocketmen! tournament, which turned out to be me and another guy who I'm very sure was the inspiration behind Fear of Girls.

Won't be doing that again any time soon. I think I'll just stick with playing with myself.

Er...