Animation, Alias and Assh... er, Jerks

I hope everyone had a good Christmas, be it family-oriented or materially satisfying! I never did develop a taste for eggnog, so I'll settle for some hot chocolate while I write up this week's blog:


Dec 22 - Star Wars is Toast

For those of you out there who always have that one impossible-to-buy-for person on your lists, I present the perfect gift: the Star Wars Toaster. Yes, your loved one or friend can greet the day with the image of Darth Vader seared into their bread of choice, feeling the power of the Dark Side flowing through them to give them the energy they need to face any challenge. You can complement this amazing piece of kitchen technology with the only logical choice of knives to slice your bread: the Jedi Ginsu Knife! Indeed, the Jedi Ginsu slices through almost anything, bread included, and stores easily in the smallest of kitchen drawers.

Considering that my menu of food choices keeps shrinking due to my recent plumbing problems, toast is still a good standby choice. Not to mention a cheap one too... and some people have raised it to an art form. Apart from the occasional grape jelly, I tend to go plain.

I hope most of you have forgotten about it, but in case you haven't.... the Star Wars Holiday Special is still out there, lurking... 1978's contribution to some of the worst TV schlock ever. So bad it's good, akin to some of those great B-movies
like Plan 9 From Outer Space or After the Fall of New York. Only this one has wookies... which are infinitely better than the ewoks, imho.

Dec 23 - Alias Flash

Though it's been a while, I've started re-watching the Alias TV series with Jennifer Garner. The layer plots, slick production values and eminent watch-ability of its cast have drawn me back, with a few sites such as Alias Season.com to fill in the blank spots when I don't quite catch all the plot points flying around.

I purchased another one of only a few XboxLive! games today, as I find most of their content rather lacking... but I have a soft spot for Bomberman. It is one of the original 'party games' the first of which caused a craze in Japan back in the early 90's, and I first played it on my venerable TurboGrafx-16, which was designed as a 5-player party machine itself - the two fit perfectly, and more than a few parties were enlivened by exploding bombs and trash-talking amongst friends.

On the topic of good games, go check out The Ten Most Addictive Flash Games Ever... see if you agree. There are so many sites out there nowadays with free flash games, that you could feasibly dispense with console games or PC games altogether... though you have to beware of some really awful games.

Dec 24 - Holiday Movies

I spent part of my day relaxing, as it is only one of two days off for the holidays.

In the early afternoon, I headed over to my parents place to spend the holiday with them. My sister was not able to make it, though that was itself a good thing given the horrible weather that had stranded thousands of people and canceled flights in B.C. Why not skip the travel insanity during the holidays, and use things like Skype instead, you might ask? Somehow I think that being with family during Christmas will always win over even just seeing family, though you'd cut out things like your uncle's halitosis and the vicious pinching fingers of well-meaning aunts seeking your cheeks like hawk talons... *ahem* Love my family, but I am glad in some ways that I am an adult now, at Christmas. Only some.

We watched Elf in the evening, which seems to be the new holiday movie of choice, though I am still partial to Scrooged along with A Christmas Story and Its A Wonderful Life. Wil Farrell playing Buddy the elf works perfectly with his talents as a lovable innocent adult in an unfamiliar world, and I was also impressed with the low-key performance of Zooey Deschanel, who also happens to have an incredible voice.

One thing I miss about Christmas eves of yesteryear is a roaring fire. I grew up in a house that had a large, wood-burning fireplace and I remember many a Christmas was spent in front of that fire, with the warmth from the crackling logs spreading throughout the room and the Christmas tree standing tall nearby... but not too close, as we usually had a real tree in those days, as fake ones were too darn expensive still. Today, most fireplaces I have seen are of the gas or even electric variety, relegating the old open hearth and wooden logs to homes that have easy access to wood supplies and folk who don't mind clearing away ash.

I think it's worth it; I especially enjoyed the time I spent living in Fonthill, in a home that had TWO wall-to-wall wood burning fireplaces, one on each floor.

Now that was cozy at Christmas!

Dec 25 - Earthquake, or digesting dinner?

Apparently there was a small earthquake at 12:11am far offshore, a 5.9 that was too small to be felt. Still, it is a reminder that I am living in an area that is exposed to such things, unlike Niagara which only has to worry about smog, thunderstorm-spawned tornadoes and bad winter weather. Who remembers the 1996 tornado that struck the drive-in theater in Thorold, which was scheduled to show Twister ? It made it to Letterman and Bob Saget, so apparently a few people took note. Not a bad film either.

I watched both Shrek the Halls and the not-so-seasonal Arthur and the Invisibles, which was the made-in-france super-expensive 3D animated film that didn't do so well over on this side of the pond, perhaps due to its rather lackluster and nonsensical story. Mind you, the animation itself was incredible, showing just how far the graphical movie arts have come since the days of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I was disappointed, as the direction was Luc Besson, who made one of my favourite films, The Fifth Element... which starred Mila Jovovitch, who seems to have a penchant for making bad movies too. Guess that's why she and Besson married each other and soon called it quits.

It was a good day, spent relaxing in the company of my family and far from the worries of current events. My plumbing behaved itself, thanks perhaps in part to the enzyme supplements I am taking... I was worried that the turkey dinner would prove to be a problem, but apparently my holiday gift was to be able to enjoy it AND not see it again in any improper manner. Joy!

Finally, what would Christmas be without... zombies? The Twelve Days of Zombie Christmas will give you the answers you need - brains. Arrgh.

Dec 26 - Nien, it is 9 !

I heard about the latest Time Burton animated film over at i09.com which is a great place to peruse the many facets of SciFi goodness. They ran an eye-popping( ow! )article about the film, which is currently under development for a near-future release. The feature film is based off a short film by creator Shane Acker, which is a tale about a post-apocalyptic world devoid of humans, but not all life... you can see the feature film's trailer at his official website. His is an interesting story about the leap from short film to feature, definately worth the read in this recent interview.

On the track of creating fiction, sometimes you get stuck. For those times when the blank page is a black hole staring you in the face, there is 911: Writer's Block, where you can turn to for inspiration when all else fails. The site is part of WeBook.com, where writers can gather to create stories together. Sounds like a virtual group hug to me, but it looks intriguing enough to try.

Oh, and since it was Boxing Day, I headed out to make only one stop to pick up some inexpensive DVD's at London Drugs - more seasons of The Simpsons, Stargate: SG-1 and all three seasons of Arrested Development, a series that Rene put me onto some time ago and I have been looking for since... on the cheap, of course! I was in and gone in less than 10 minutes at 9am, the most civilized Boxing Day sale I have ever been to, especially compared to last year's zoo at Future Shop that I lined up at 5:30am for... never again. Considering the current economic downturn, I would not be surprised to see sales continue well into the new year as retailers struggle to stay afloat. Some higher-end ones have already gone under and more are sure to fall as consumers close their wallets and strive to save.

Which means gift cards are a bad idea, given that if a company goes under, any cards outstanding will not be honoured as they are considered part of debt. Good luck going to court for your $25.00 card!

Dec 27 - Weary Weekend

While waiting for many a film to arrive in the coming year, some folk get a little impatient... like this fellow, whose obvious ardour for all things Thundercat shows in his spectacular fan-made movie trailer, which skillyfully blends clips of actors from dozens of movies, adding special effects and overlays. It is quite convincing, along the lines of the fake Phantom Menace trailer from the late 1990's, of which I still have a copy floating around somewhere... surprisingly, it is nowhere to be found on YouTube!

Work today was steady but unremarkable, which is the way I like it - the fewer emotionally-twisted children masquerading as adults that I have to deal with, the better. Sometimes I wish I had the ability to move one of my eyes independandly of the other... I can only imagine how well that would work to defuse and confuse tense situations, when one eye keeps drifting off-center. Surely it would work better than an eye-twitch, that keeps getting worse as the person keeps being a jerk... hint, hint? Too bad that the rule holds that the worse a jerk the person is, the more oblivious they are to other people. just do not confuse the oblivious ones with the real serial jerks out there....

Dec 28 - Sunday Games

Unsurprisingly, I am going to mention... the sun. Since it was out and shining today, the snow piles melted considerably, leaving the streets far more navigable than they have been for the past week. It was nice to return home on relatively dry pavement, instead of picking one's way down hills mostly covered in ice. Victoria has quite a few hills to it, if you travel around the city a bit, which only adds to its charm, I think - the Niagara Escarpment is lovely, but can't hold a patch to the mountains here.

Feeling sheepish? Fatigue getting the better of your reflexes? Then test your reaction time with a little virtual sheep-herding... with a tranquilizer gun. Go on, you know it sounds like fun... or are you still feeling a little baaa-humbug from the holiday craze? *grin*

As most of you know, I am not a sports fan... nor is proficiency with a golf club high on my list. However, when I find a game called Medieval Golf online, my interest is perked... especially since you play it with arrows. Ah, to have time time to indulge that particular one of my hobbies... soon, I hope.


All for now... more news as I trip over it - see last week's blog for some major news of mine, the entry is highlighted in red.

DVD's, Dinner and Decisions

I'd ask Thought Police to actually read the blog entire, before commenting, as it only shows them to be foolish by leaving comments that ignore the blog's content.. but why bother? I'll bet they just skim, and don't actually read - keywording at work, folks. Hey, my first intro-comment link! Whoop.


Dec 15 - Scams

Low energy...

Turns out the phone calls I have been getting are from an 'Imperial Cruise Lines' ... important to note the name, as they are NOT the same company as 'Imperial Cruise LINE' - the distinction will be important later. Seems that this less-than-reputable bunch( nee scammers )use autodialers to call numbers and so determine the times of day when people there pick up. They then pass that info on to call center staff to peruse, based on data from their 'automated survey' call, which basically tells them if the mark is likely to have money to spend( nee be bilked of )on a vacation cruise. Apparently lots of people have been getting these types of calls, which often result in large sums vanishing from one's credit cards, if you are foolish enough to give such info away. Given that these scammers are taking full advantage of internet-based IP phones, which are difficult to trace and have no CallerID, it makes the National Do Not Call Lists rather impotent. Law enforcement is slow to follow up on complaints, which then means that the numbers that DO show up are already out of service a few weeks later. Reading some of the information that former employees talk about is eye-opening as well, and makes me wonder HOW this kind of company can stay in business legally? The world is not what it once was.

I watched Transformers in the evening, which was in the now-defunct HD-DVD format. Say what you will, I stick by my guns that it IS the better format - Blu-Ray has far fewer features, but had the backing of all the major studios, likely because it was cheaper to produce. Ah well. Transformers looked amazing on the HDTV, as the detail of the robots was mind-boggling. Too bad the video game stank... they should take a page from Good Old Games, which is a company dedicated to bringing the best of the older video games into today's age, making them run under Vista and the like. Oddworld!!

Dec 16 - Concepts and Movies

With the expression "Work is good for what ails ya" in mind, I set out today, my second day off, to make myself feel a little better... by organizing my place. I went through all my books, papers and sundry stuff to comb out all that which was no longer relevant to my life, which was surprisingly little. The papers took the longest, as old bills and other whatnot had to be examined to see if they were still worth keeping - the papers, not the bills. I progressed steadily through the day, cleaning, dusting, moving, tossing and the rest, until by dinnertime I was satisfied - my place finally looked like I wanted it to. All the extra was tossed or tucked away, I'd found a few things I thought lost, and in general I liked the neatness... the old saw of 'settled surroundings, settled mind' was definitely at work here.

I Stumbled across a website that is a mecca for people posting concept art; one fellow actually had his art go from concept to full-sized spaceship, built for a theme park in Germany, in only three months! Sing the praises!

Speaking of concepts, while waiting for Watchmen to come out, I came across a trailer for X-Men: Origins - Wolverine, with Hugh Jackman reprising his successful clawful role as the badass mutant. Nice that Wolvey keeps gaining popularity as the years go by.

I finished off the evening watching Iron Man, which was a great comic book movie. All the elements were there: cool superhero suit, lots of action, and even a redheaded Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, assistant to Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark. I've always liked Iron Man, though regrettably I've not kept any of the few issues I had from years ago. Apparently the newer issues have incredible writing in them, so I'll have to try and scout eBay for a few issues in the new year. Cool suit, did I mention that?

Dec 17 - What is that white stuff?

It snowed all day today, which in itself is nothing I am not used to from decades in Niagara. However, there is not even a tenth as snow removal or salting equipment here in Victoria, due to the much milder temperatures. Which means that when it keeps on snowing with low temperatures, things literally pile up faster than can be dealt with.

Tonight was a case in point. After I finished work in a flurry( hah! )of activity, I raced to the nearby bus stop, thinking I was a few minutes early for the scheduled bus. So I waited confidently, snugly tucked into my winter gear. And waited. And waited. After a half-hour, I was rather put out, moreso as I had spotted a bus in the far distance pulled over with its hazard lights on. After trying to call the bus schedule number futilely, it being busy constantly, I trekked over to the bus in the distance. The driver told me that due to the slippery roads, ALL transit buses had been told to wait until the roads were re-evaluated and the salters/sanders had had a chance to get around the main routes. So he took my ticket, gave me a transfer slip and I waited with a few others another ten minutes until we were finally given the go-ahead to proceed. I then waited with a large crowd downtown in the main foyer to Chapters, keeping warm for another hour almost until the bus I needed straggled in. Annoyingly, the driver told everyone that by that point, the ride was free due to the delay... but I had already paid on the other bus. Ah well, at least it got me most of the way home... albeit two hours late. Which was about the average wait for a cab that night, due to the virtual shutdown of transit. Thanks, snowfall.

Dec 18 - Bacon and Wall-E

A little late now to order in time for Christmas, but as a companion to my earlier blog entry I present: bacon ornaments! That's right... now you can hang your fave food on your tree for the holidays! And, in case you didn't already know about it, ILoveBacon.com is up and running for all your bacon needs!

Speaking of greasy, I made it home from work in the usual half hour, as the buses were running on time today, for a wonder. Seems it just takes them a day to get used to snowfall, which according to the locals has not been this heavy since the Blizzard of 1996, the year when Victoria held the record for all of Canada for the most snow accumulation in 24 hours... ouch. Not as much snow as the White Death, when Niagara and Western New York State got buried in snow in 1977. The sledding was good that year. Shades of The Day After Tomorrow, really, but without the bad acting. Or the wolves.

I headed over to my neighbour's place, in the next apartment on the same floor, for dinner and a movie. This was the first movie night we'd had since springtime earlier in the year, so I was excited... my social calendar here in Victoria has had few outings of this type at all, to my regret. We watched Wall-E, the Pixar CG-animated movie... it was fantastic! The graphics, as expected, were top-notch, and I was impressed that the producers did not try to go for a 'true-human' look as Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within did( mostly successfully )back in 2001. What impressed me the most though was the personality that the animators managed to imbue into the robotic characters, mainly done without dialogue. Watching their antics on the screen, I was reminded of the silent pictures of the early film era, where gesture, expression and body language had to convey the totality of expression in the absence of words. Charlie Chaplin, we miss you.

Dec 19 - Fuzzy Friday

Listening to the radio at work always helps the day go faster, or at least not suck as much. The station I have tuned in here, 100.3 'The Q' seems tailor-made to my tastes: lots of oldies, classic rock and the odd indie song tossed in, without any rap, dance, techno, metal or other related... stuff. I am almost always pleased with their selections, even the esoteric ones I've never heard of - rare is the time when I flick off the radio in the back when I can't stand the choice of song. So that's a good thing here.

After a long day, I was feeling rather woozy - dizzy even, at points. I've been taking digestive enzymes on my doctor's recommendation, to see if they might assist with bringing my plumbing back to normal... but no results as yet. So, I packed my bags and spent the night visiting my parents, who put me up in their spare room. I slept very well, and our cat Tristan was delighted to see me for such a long stretch, so much so that he barely left my side all evening. I didn't eat much, as usual, apart from a slice of pizza and a buttered bun - I have been using liquid meal replacements at work for the last few weeks, as they avoid the nausea that has inevitably followed eating solid food. That cannot continue forever though, as I need to find the reason for this problem and not just continue to treat the symptoms.

Dec 20 - Decision

I woke up to the toot of a train horn somewhat after seven AM, just one of the lovely things that living in Esquimalt forces you to get used to. At least the stench of diesel over the entire Inner Harbour is much less on the weekend, as there are fewer commuter flights leaving. Also, this is the off-season for tour buses, who show up three or four at a time during the summer to loudly proclaim over the views.

But, enough about that. I was still feeling burned out, as I have been for the last many weeks, due to whatever is causing my illness. Part of the symptoms is that I do not feel hunger, even after not eating for 12 hours or longer - I just don't. So I have to remind myself to eat, and watch that I don't eat too much at once... I've taken to having four or five smaller meals a day, as that seems to work around the nausea I get an hour after a regular-sized meal. Taking digestive enzymes helps, and I am still able to function fairly normally, despite a few dizzy or nauseous episodes a day, which only happen after a meal... for the most part. So that's only three times a day, really, when you think about it. Every day.

Which is why today I had to make a choice: to continue on my own, or make plans for my near future.

Plans, you say? Yes. I have to consider that I will not quickly figure out what is going on internally with my plumbing, nor that my doctor will find a simple solution - he hasn't yet, and I am going to be getting a few more specialist's opinions in the new year. So with that in mind, I have decided to hedge my bets in case I am unable to continue working or functioning on my own in the coming year.

Discussing things with my parents for the last few months, we have co-ordinated our searches for an alternate residence, and today we went to see a house in Langford that hit all the checkboxes. It is about a fifteen minute drive from Victoria, on a good day, is located on a lake with a view, close to many amenities and has plenty of room for everyone and our 'stuff' too.

We loved it, and immediately sent off an email to the owner that we would take it.

Which meant that I also contacted my own landlord and gave notice today, which broke my heart... because I love my current apartment. I've rhapsodized about it many times in my blog, so let me just say this: as I look around while composing today's entry, I am again struck by how comfortable and perfectly suited this place is to me, in so many ways: the size, the location, the neighbours, the way the sun lights the whole place all day long... that I can write in peace here, with my independence and all that I need at hand. It is everything I wanted in a place of my own.

Now I have to leave it, by my own choice albeit forced by circumstance. Which means that I will be moved out of this location by Feb 1st, 2009. Bitter is that taste, to have found a place that is all that you wanted and be forced to leave it by your body's betrayal. Bitter, bitter a taste indeed.

Dec 21 - Sunday Slush

The splash effect of slush on semi-cleared roads should not be understated, especially where temperatures have not solidly frozen roadside accumulations. I watched several people eat flying slush as cars zoomed past on the somewhat cleared main roads today, waiting for the bus on Fairfield Rd. I passed quite a few folks out on their Sunday morning to clear their walks; there must have been easily a dozen people flailing away with shovels, not to mention those who had already cleared their walks and the sidewalks in front of their homes too. I am sure that many an enterprising youngster will make a good few dollars today with no more than a sturdy shovel and a penchant for ringing doorbells all day.

Which made for a slow day at work. I've brought in a humidifier, as the air here hovers around 35%( or less )humidity, which is uncomfortable to work in. Cracked skin on one's hands and the occasional nosebleed are things I try to avoid adding to my list of winter enjoyments, so the added moisture, although not substantial, helps to keep these minor scourges at bay during my work day. Not to mention that the lobby is at least 15-20 degrees cooler than the heavy-glass-insulated teller area, so whenever the heating system comes on, cold air is displaced from the lobby and blasts into the teller zone... can you say, "My hands are frozen?" I knew that you could. Now thaw 'em out and count change.

I watched the DVD extras for Iron Man after getting home from work - amazingly easy on a Sunday night, as the bus goes directly from my branch to the stop outside my front door. Maybe a hundred steps total from work to home... and I won't be doing that ever again, in little more than a month. Though I will likely still be working every Sunday... I'm tempted to get religion, just for the day off.

Ahem. DVD extras... there are a LOT of them with Iron Man, all top-notch and informative. Must be the hundreds of geeks involved in the creative process... they know what sorts of things they would like to see on these things. Great gobs of CGI graphics, diagrams and interviews - when I was finished watching I felt like I had been on the crew for most of the production. I'll have to pick this one up.


And on to the Comments... if any. Will there be spiders?

Stories, Swedes and Snow

Well, l'm not sure what to make of Brian hijacking my blog... my thoughts are akin to watching a chihuahua try to chew my leg off: good luck, little nipper. Though it'd be cute to watch him try, with those beady little eyes and that yappy noise he makes. Oh, the chihuahua, not Brian. Really.

Dec 8 - Butchart and Goldstream

Off today, but busy nonetheless; left in the late AM to travel north to Goldstream park. The stench of dead salmon was still strong despite the cool air; you could smell it from the road just as the trees began to close in from the park proper. But I was not there to see the dead dish, no - I was there to see eagles. Not just ANY eagles either: bald eagles. Yes, you heard correctly... this is the time of year when the bald eagles flock to cleanup duty, when the streams disgorge their cargo of dead fish into the estuaries and the eagles feast.

We ended up at the far end of Goldstream park, which was mercifully free of crowds, being a weekday and after the Salmon Run died off weeks ago... literally. The weather was great, illuminating the trees and their mossy coverings. We stood outside the Nature Lodge and watched at least a dozen bald eagles, both the parents and the young, in trees across the expanse of the 'Quiet Zone' which is an area where humans are forbidden to trespass or make noise - this has brought larger numbers of eagles back every year for years since its institution at this end of the park. Once I knew what to look for, the bald eagles were easy to spot( hi Brian! )as their heads looked like white golf balls against the green trees. Really - they looked just like that. Only, well, eagle-ish. Having a pair of good binoculars helped bring things close, and they were amazing to watch - there are live cameras accessible through this site here, which has cams for other wildlife parks in the area too.

On to lunch at the Waddling Dog, a bar with a great name, good food and mediocre service. Apparently, the bar is named after a mascot dachshund, whose bigger-than-life-sized image stands ready by the far entrance. They're up to John the 6th apparently, who spends most of his time sleeping under the counter by the main entrance - we didn't see him, as we arrived around 2pm and didn't want to bother the sodden crowd gathered around the sports scores at the main bar. The food was good, in decent portions, but the whole time we were given the feeling that the waitress would rather be anywhere else... she was easily the most inattentive and least personable waitress we've had in years. Not rude... just indifferent in large doses. Ah well... that's what tips are for, or in this case, lacking thereof.

Finally, we got to Butchart Gardens, arriving in time for me to actually get some pictures in daylight this time. Now that the winter is here, the flowers are in short supply, but there is still a lot of green everywhere; the lawns are full and lush despite the low temperatures, which surprised me. We took a walk through once while the daylight was waning, then set out again more slowly to capture the Christmas lights in all their glory - they go all-out here, with tens of thousands of lights strung all throughout the Gardens. They had the Twelve Days of Christmas done to the nines at various points in the park, like the Five Golden Rings here and here, seen after dark. You can see some other folk's pictures here, along with the IEOA Lighted Truck Parade that took place last week, which I missed due to work - again. Ah well... they have it every year, so I'll see it eventually.

Dec 9 - Frankly G33k Decorating

I spent a good part of the day moving my Blue Frankenstein from one side of my apartment to the other, which involved a lot of wire untangling and general cursing. It really made the place look bigger and less cluttered though, now that it is ensconced next to my couch and no longer a hulking, glowing focal point for the room. Quieter too, with fan noise being muffled by proximity to the fabric and not stuck out in the open to reflect off surfaces, like hardwood floors. A technical challenge though, to get the HDMI signal across the room to the TV, which a long cable solved... sort of. Once I had everything hooked up and turned it on, the video flickered, went red, and then went to static. A problem...

Which is the kind of thing I enjoy solving. After some head-scratching and cursing, I surmised that the signal being output by my video card simply wasn't strong enough to wend its way through twenty-five feet of cable and arrive all fresh and happy at the TV... hence the odd colour-then-static failure. So I grabbed a few extra cables and ran the signal through a handy HDMI splitter I'd purchased for other reasons... lo and behold: a perfectly strong boosted signal. Stick THAT in your tech support, ATI! I am bitter about ATI's total inability to solve my antiquated All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro video card issues, despite several years of emails... but since Microsoft can't solve my Xbox360 HDMI issues either, I have to make do with what I come up with.

Dec 10 - Swedish Shelves

After moving things around yesterday, I got down to the business of bookshelf-building today, as the final shelf has sat in a box in my bedroom for almost 11 months now awaiting space to be cleared. It took but an hour to put things together and set it up under my TV next to the fireplace, and I must say the room has a completed look to it now that the pile of PC cables and gear never gave it. Perhaps this is what things are moving towards: hiding the home computer out of sight so that only the interface, like wireless keyboards and a TV display, are visible. Aside from the PC modder community, I think this is how things will be for most folk, as nobody likes to see this taking up space in their living room or den. What with having a laptop now, the old PC has taken a back seat, mainly existing to heat my place in the winter while processing the latest BOINC files, as well as gather my email and serve media to the TV... not a bad life, as retired computers go; things could be much worse. Especially since in the ten years since this article on computer recycling was published, not much has changed - the only province in Canada to charge an environmental levy on electronic purchases is B.C. - how ironic! I love the fact that you can go to this RCBC website and look up available recycling methods for almost any product... lack of knowledge often results in things being landfilled that could otherwise be recycled.

On a completely unrelated note, the Swedish Chef has been on my mind of late. Nothing got me laughing faster while watching TV than an episode of The Muppets with the Chef on it. The way things always progressed from simple cooking to bizarre disaster was always creative and uproariously funny as well as being a new twist every time, guest stars aside. As befits a scion of St. Catharines, one of my favourite clips is the Chef showing us how to make a donut.

There is even a Swedish Chef Translator, which apparently has been around in one form or another for over a decade... who knew? Go ahead, use the Borkifier and see what happens!

Then there is the related Theory of Swedish Meatballs...

Dec 11 - Short Stories

Does anyone remember "The Storyteller" ? It was a great series designed to present fairy tales to modern audiences, created by who else but Jim Henson. It starred John Hurt, and was a great show to curl up in front of the fire with, so to speak. Other shows along the same lines were Amazing Stories, The Twilight Zone and the live-action show Dinosaurs, again by Brian Henson.

My DVD copy of the Robotech Protoculture Collection arrived from Amazon.ca today, a used copy that was mailed to me all the way from England. Considering that a new copy is currently running around $150.00 CAN plus shipping, I got quite a sweet deal. Now I can erase all 80 or so episodes I recorded on my DVR last spring, which will clear a LOT of space, I tell you. Though since I don't use it to record much TV of late, the extra space isn't really necessary... again with the irony.

Dec 12 - Silly people, locks are for hicks!

I thought today would start out horribly, as I had no sooner arrived at work and locked the door behind me than Crazy Lady showed up wanting in. A too-long mime session later, she got the point that no, we were NOT open, that she could come back at 11am, and that the hours posted on the door DID actually apply to her as well as everyone else. Amazingly, she went away and only came back once to rattle the door at 10:50 am, ever so briefly, before coming back at 11:10 to act totally normal when dealing with me... not even a peep of derision for not opening the store immediately when she arrived. Perhaps she was discovering that Canada did not run to her schedule of needs, and that she might actually need to consult a bus schedule or read posted business hours once in a while?

Nah. She's crazy. That's all I have to say about today, as the rest was pretty normal.

Dec 13 - Snow. Yes, it is exciting. For some.

Late in the evening, well after I arrived home, it began to snow. Now, this is no big thing back in Niagara, but this is the first snow of the year for Victoria. For the last week, talk on the radio, among customers in the lobby, passers-by and total strangers can all be summed up with the question: "When do you think it will start snowing?" - again, it felt odd to me, but people here get excited. Not to mention silly, for a few simple cm of gently falling powder makes people cower inside their homes.

Which are not all that warm, with single-glazed windows and an almost total lack of insulation. Again I am astounded at the difference my insulation efforts have made to my apartment, as I have yet to turn on the heat despite the mercury dropping to a few notches below zero. Comfy inside? You betcha!

Here's a poem I wrote to keep up the spirits of one of my co-workers, as the heat failed in their branch today and they were wrapped up like an Eskimo in a meat locker:

Cold days should be warm, filled with happy thought,
Of hearth-warmth and the smiles it has brought.

Kettle's whistle brings cocoa in hand-warming mugs,
Curled up by the fire, stocking feet tucked in snug.

Snow flutters outside, silent piles of white,
As friends share stories on cold winter's night.

For the critical among my readers, I invite you to see this link on the world's greatest poet. The choice may surprise you. Or not. I know this poor guy would love to have been considered for the title above.

Dec 14 - Rocks Fall... no, not asteroids!

Well, the roads are covered in snow finally, but the stoic acceptance that is so Canadian meant most people simply piled on a few more layers and sauntered out into the weather. I was amused to see how some of my neighbours cleared snow from their yard: she with a shovel, he with... a garden hoe. Hoe, Hoe, Hoe, as the holiday Santas say.

Work was very quiet, and nobody bothered to come by in the last hours after the sun went down and things really started to chill. Though again some folks had different opinions on what 'cold' meant: the girl from Alberta, wearing only a blazer jacket, was used to -40C temps, and the guy from Saudi Arabia went on about how nice it was out compared to the sunstroke-inducing temps of his native country.

I was reading through an extremely funny online comic take on the Lord of The Rings saga, which looks at things as though the whole story was being played as an adventure by a group of gamers. Feel free to skip it if you've never played an RPG before, as you won't get most of the jokes. It's funny, trust me.

Erm, back to the point: one phrase mentioned in one of the comics is 'Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies.' Now, this is a phrase that any old-school RPG gamer has heard at one time or another... but nobody seems to be able to put an origin to. Along of the lines of such phrases as 'Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey', the Rocks phrase seems to have sprung into being at the beginning of RPG lore. Funny as well too, as it is basically a cop-out, where the person running the game is tired of his player's whining and simply kills them off by saying the phrase. The look of shock on the players faces is usually worth it, but the whining almost never stops after that point. Speaking of which, did I have a point here somewhere...? Ah yes: obscure origins of phrases are endlessly fascinating. Well, to some, they are... and thanks to the 'net, there is now the Slang Dictionary - go read it before I break your crayons. Or something.

I was dead tired after work today, so much so that I kept falling asleep while typing up the blog after a late dinner. Perhaps the week just caught up to me, or I was just feeling warm and cozy curled up with the laptop tossing out heat like a hot brick - seriously, this thing can melt ice cubes in less than a minute. Which is not all that useful, but if you have nothing better to do you could look at this site, which compiles the Top 10 Time-Wasting Sites on the internet today. I wonder how much time it took to compile that list...?

Thanks to all those who sent their well-wishes during my last few weeks of illness... oh wait, nobody did. Well, thanks to those who might have thought about it, then forgot; after all, especially at this time of year, its the thought that counts. And chicken soup doesn't keep hot long during shipping... too bad.

Space, Sweepstakes and Sickness

Another late Monday update... my apologies, but I have been VERY preoccupied this week with my health and being damned busy besides. Still, this blog is important to me, so here we are...


Dec 1 - Overtime by the Dozen

Oi, what a day... and to think it was my day OFF too!

My first mistake was to volunteer to "help out for a few hours" at another branch in the morning. You know me, always willing to trade in my time for some O/T and help out my co-workers in the process - I hate having a day off knowing others are suffering for my lack of willingness to work.

So... that started the ball rolling. Things were going well, I worked from 10am to 2pm and decided to stay until 4pm to ensure the morning opener finished her shift on time.

Big mistake.

The computers went down at 3:55pm... hard. So hard that they were off for three hours... and this as the day suddenly got busier, which was totally unexpected.

So it was me and three other tellers, including the hapless opener, who had to deal with things. We had to do all of our transactions manually, while trying to ensure that the folks waiting to be served did not break into frenzies of impatience. Fortunately, only one customer of the whole lot had the smarm to remark "If your computers are down, why didn't you put a sign on the door?" ... at 4:30pm. I won't dignify his idiocy by recording my response here, as what I said summed up everyone's feelings remarkably well without being rude. Though it did cause the customer to roll his eyes.

After the horror show was said and done, I had worked 12 hours solid... on my day off. Most of it spent cursing our Internet provider, whose swiss-cheese service had taken even our helpdesk by surprise... and making it impossible to fix from their end of things. Yet after all that, the branch closed up and had no unusual errors in the transactions after all was said and done. Even the staff's attitude was positive, if exhausted - we'd all managed to keep each other smiling despite the stress.

Which is why I am still with this company - the people it hires are just incredible, most days, though all of us are human. Days like today show that we can all rise to the occasion by relying on each other. Though I relied on my bed to draw me quickly into a semi-coma as soon as I got home. Argh... as a sop to all those out there who hate tech support, I offer this questionnaire.

Dec 2 - Managing Things

I was rather bleary-eyed today for my 9-hour shift, no wonder given yesterday's excesses of energy-draining excitement( if you can call it that ). Still, some good news cometh:

Today I accepted the position of manager for my branch, which comes with a raise both in pay and responsibility. Given that the the corporate climate( ick, I feel dirty now )here in Victoria is MUCH more to my liking in several key ways compared to Niagara, I decided a few weeks ago to take the plunge. Our branch has been without a manager since late summer, so stepping into that role has been on my mind to take some of the stress off other managerial staff in the area. Considering that I have almost nine years experience with the company, it was an easier decision for me in some ways, though as always there is training to be done with any new position. I hope I can be as good a leader as I have been in other roles, but you can only find out these things by doing - like a weekly blog, fr'instance.

Once I fell onto the couch at home, I discovered a bit of good news: looks like the video game adaptation of Ghostbusters is finally a go! I have wanted to play a game-version of the movie ever since it game out, and have never been satisfied with all the low-budget pretenders that have shown up over the years. Considering that the entire original cast has signed on for the voice work, I have high hopes for this one to hit most of the marks... really. I do!

Dec 3 - Pick your Disease

After my usual 9-hour day, which went remarkably quickly, I headed out to another branch to help their newly-hired closer to, well, close the place up. Another few hours of O/T, which is always nice - seems to be a trend this week and for December in general. Once more thing I LOVE about B.C. is that after 8 hours of work, O/T is automatic - back in Niagara, O/T was only paid after jumping through flaming hoops while slathered in gasoline gel and while carrying road flares between your teeth. As in, not likely. Here, if the Need Is Dire, then people can actually HELP OUT and not leave their co-workers stranded knee-deep, especially during the double-whammy of busy December and Cold Season. Huzzah!

Towards the end of the evening, a middle-aged couple came in and began dealing with my co-worker. After a few minutes, she asked me to take over for her, as things got... complicated.

Turns out that the lady was in with her husband to set up an account for him again... as he was on disability for a mental condition I'd never heard of: frontio-temporal dementia, also referred to as 'Picks Disease' used to describe the common pathology.

Things like this scare the willies out of me, as they constitute some of the many blindside-horrors that life can toss at you, like cancer, car crashes or randomly falling meteorites. There is no way to prepare oneself against the random, so listening to this woman's tale sent some shivers down my back, especially the part about how her husband's friends had all abandoned him over the last few years, unable to cope with his changing personality. They could no longer see the man they knew when dealing with him, even when informed about the way the disease was affecting his brain.

I hope I never have to experience that sort of situation. What would it be like, seeing someone you've known all your life turn into someone else, and have no way of knowing if the original person was still in there somewhere? Horror, folks... it takes many forms, and that is one of them for me.

For those of you with a little time on your hands, this site is chock-full of quizzes. Perhaps you may find some in there that challenge your sense of reality, morals, or just your spelling skills. Go see.

Dec 4 - Space Sickness

I've been watching the original Star Blazers animated series this last week, one episode in the morning during breakfast before work. I have to say I am enjoying it almost as much as I did when I was a kid, back when I was six years old and would run home from school so I could catch the last ten minutes of Star Blazers... it was grossly unfair that it showed every day at 3:30pm, I thought; why couldn't they bump The Smurfs and make it so I could see ALL of this amazing program? This was in the days before VCR's, so I actually had my dad rig a cassette recorder to catch the show while leaving the TV on, just so I could hear what had happened.

I think this helped develop my imagination / mind's eye, as I would sit there and listen with my eyes closed, creating the images in my head of the episode as the tape played. I still have one or two tapes as keepsakes... that's how much I loved Star Blazers, and it has stayed with me ever since. Now that I have the series( just the first of three, and none of the movies )on DVD, I am experiencing the show in a whole new way: visually. It's been thrilling, and I catch the odd flashback from those after-school days as scenes from thirty years ago flash past my eyes...

Today started out all right physically, but by mid-afternoon I was feeling the effects of the week catching up to me: lethargy and slight dizziness crept up on me so that by shift-end I was ready to go home. You know that feeling you get after one too many beers, when you turn and it takes a half-second for the rest of the room to catch up to you? That was me by the end of today's normal 9-hour shift... ick. Not that it helped that I was feeling nauseous too... my malfunctioning gall bladder does interesting things to my digestion sometimes, enough so that things don't always go smoothly - 'nuff said on that, save that when things go awry, it makes me wish all over again that I didn't have to eat at all. Yeah.

While at home tonight, after a small dinner that thankfully decided to co-operated with the plumbing and move along quietly, I StumbledUpon a few online sweepstakes sites. While I am not one to promote what amounts to blatant advertising grabs, I am not above perusing a few search results to find the most "bang for the buck" contests out there. Seems there are plenty of places doling out prizes online, though most require you to play various time-wasting Flash-based games and the like. I'll be trying out the other variety, where you enter your info but once a day towards larger prizes of several thousand dollars( or more ). I figure in those cases, I can spend a few minutes a day typing towards a prize... and not have to spend money every week on lottery tickets at all. Not that I do anyway... and we shall see how long it takes for the first junk mail to reach my mailbox.

Dec 5 - ReBarf

I made myself a nice breakfast today: eggs, pancakes, bacon, toast. Not too much of each, but definitely a feel good meal before what promised to be another long day at work. Big mistake... as an hour after eating, things got confused in the plumbing and wanted out again, the wrong way. It was as bad as my reactions earlier in the year, but I managed to hang tough until the feeling passed, if you'll pardon the pun - considering how I felt, I wasn't laughing. I meandered through work, trying to fight the urge to go cross-eyed at various times as things... bubbled. The after-lunch nausea wasn't so bad, but I ate my meal slowly over the course of an hour, so it slipped past unnoticed perhaps. Not an easy thing, dealing with customers while trying not to turn green and run away. Which, I suppose, is not an uncommon reaction in customer service...

At home, I checked in at ReBoot.com to see how things are progressing; the latest WebComic was up, and it's tight - since the creators of ReBoot are taking a strong hand in bringing the show back, the site's production values are stellar. I am excited to see what current CGI technology can do for a new series set in the Reboot universe, given that huge value for production dollars can now be had by combining today's CGI systems with the ReBoot visual style.

Dec 6 - Immortal Puns

Up early, did my laundry before work, which was great... ate a small breakfast too, just some cereal. Which caused only a small amount of nausea, but enough things aren't working per my manual's specs that I am looking forward to a doctor's appointment on Monday. I have a feeling that it is related to my gallstone condition, I hope - I don't need news that my intestines have decided to throw me for another loop.

Home and hungry, but considering my nausea I settled for a PBJ and crackers. I watched the clock, paying attention to my internal mutterings, and was relieved that after a few discontented gurgles, my offering of food was grudgingly accepted.

I relaxed before zzzz-time by re-reading part of an old favourite series by Piers Anthony, a favourite author of mine from.... well, as far back as I can recall. He wrote the many wonderful Xanth novels, which are famous for the puns included in each book that are sent in by fans; Anthony keeps careful track of each usage and credits them in the back of the book they appear in. How cool is that? So, back to what I was reading: Wielding A Red Sword, part of the Incarnations of Immortality series that Anthony wrote, which included the more famous On A Pale Horse, which of course dealt with Death - who had really only ever been looked at originally at the time by Terry Pratchett... but I digress.

The reason I bring up Wielding A Red Sword is that in the back of the book, Piers Anthony uses quite a few pages to catch up his fans on what has happened to him, the author, since his last book... and since this is in the days before even BBS systems, long before websites, I found it fascinating. Because really, what is it other than a blog? That thought really spun my brain, because twenty years ago there was nothing really available about authors save autobiographies... but here was an author who willingly took the time to catch his readers up on events in his and his family's life in every book! Amazing!

Dec 7 - Still Sickening Sunday

Damn.... I was hoping today would track close to the forecast, but the dratted clouds skittered away to leave a bright, sunny day. Not warm by any stretch of the imagination, but still lovely as long as one did not tarry in the shade. I saw several folk who were waiting for the bus just outside the branch window think better of doing it in the building's shadow and quickly walk back into the light. Sun-day!

Dinner was a larger one, as an experiment to tell the doctor about tomorrow: turkey with gravy, squash, peas and Brussels sprouts. Not too much of each, but the largest meal I have had this week. Sure enough, about 1.6 hours after I had eaten, I got the awful feeling that things were not progressing smoothly downstairs... and that things wanted to come back up for a second opinion. After another hour of will-vs-body, the feeling of nausea went away... but I'm still quite worried. It doesn't feeling like what I am used to concerning my usual digestive ticks, especially since I pay close attention to what my body tells me after the gallstone incident four years ago.

We will see what the doctor has to say in the morning; hopefully his diagnosis is that it is not a major problem... and that he actually knows WHAT the problem IS. And that it does not require any sort of medical treatment requiring a look inside; I hate the thought of sharp skin-slicing thingies.

Just to leave things on a not-so-dreary note, we have: the Elvish Name Generator... go on, give it a try. Apparently my name is 'Golradir Fëfalas' which means nothing to me, as I do not speak Tolkien's Sindarin. Which according to the site's FAQ, this isn't really based on. Which makes me like it all the more... in addition to the fact you can generate your Hobbit Name on the site too. Cute, t'is. Indeed.


I was saddened this week to learn that Jen has put her real estate career on hold; I hope it's a temporary thing. What with all the doom and gloom nowadays, I know I am tightening my own belt while looking towards the future... not that my RRSP's will be in any decent shape anytime soon FOR that future, but one has to hope. Comments?

Dating, Dancing and Duty

Another week, another delayed blog update; Monday was a wash, and you can find out why in next week's blog as to the reason for this week's delay.

Nov 24 - The Right Words

Last year at this time I was fighting off a cold, as well as trying to settle into the New Ways of Doing Things here at MMart in BC. The combination was not fun, I can assure you, though I am happy that this year I seem to be cold-free( so far ).

On the note of Doing Things The Right Way, searching that phrase on Google turned up a lot of irrelevant results - moreso than usual. A lot of Right-Wing political sites as well as etiquette hits dominated the results - a far cry from searching for "French Military Victories" as I have mentioned before.

I learned a little bit more about the book industry today, after perusing some of the various industry magazines I have been collecting over the years. Apparently the 'average' novel size on today's market ranges from 60,000 to 100,000 words, which is great news, as it puts my own Novel Project within my grasp - my blog accounts for almost as many words per year as a novel, so my practice with that will bear fruit in creating a novel... in that I have to keep at it, week to week, and write a decent amount of copy so I can trim it down viciously and start building it back up again.

Which is exciting. :-)

Nov 25 - Demise of Dating

Life is full of odd coincidences. Take for example, dating sites. I have tried various sites on and off over the years, with no real results save for their taking my membership money while danging the carrot of the Ultimate Relationship Match in front of the salivating singles crowd.

What I find amusing is that twice now, on the very day I canceled my memberships at one of these sites, people have contacted me... damned odd, as it might be months in between messages or matches. What is the old saying? Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action... which means I might as well start updating my Nemester.com account with these people - you never know what devious forms Evil will take; what better a supposedly beautiful single on a dating site? Hmmm... I think there is a story in there somewhere, have to work on that one.

Myself, I find online dating amusing in many ways... as apparently these folks here do. Have a look, as it seems even the living impaired have their own dating website; brings new meaning to the phrase 'internet zombies' ya know. I wonder if there is a dating site for aliens living on earth...?

Nov 26 - Senior Chill

Today was Pension Day, and a markedly quiet one at that. At the larger branches, it was fairly steady from what I hear, but at my branch things dropped off noticeably once the sun went down - every other person was talking about "how cold it was" outside. Which made me smile, as temps approaching zero are chilly, but not cold to my minus-teens memories of Niagara. Which are nothing compared to the arctic blasts that sock in Ottawa at times - I remember being damned cold inside Aaron's old place during a visit far too many years ago, as I felt full force how cold our nation's capitol can be. Now that I am here, in a provincial capitol, I just smile to hear people proving how flexible their definition of cold can be.

In my own case, my Cheapo Window Insulation Kit seems to be working well, keeping temps inside my place cool but not chilly. I may not even need to turn on the heat this winter, which will be most gratifying to my wallet - having sweated during the summer heat, I think I can do with tossing on a few sweaters( oh, the irony ). I'm hoping that my preparations will see me through the cool winter months here, as I'd rather save money than sweat in comfort. If I could design an inexpensive in-home solar heat retention kit, I'm sure I'd make a killing - these Kiwis seem to have hit on a similar idea.

Nov 27 - Bored Games

One thing I miss about my high-school days is the board game. I have a few favourites still collecting dust on my shelves, ones that I could not bear to part with though I never did pick up a Monopoly board. While some people I know have( or had? )dozens of games, I enjoyed quite a few sessions of Axis & Allies despite the fact that Aaron always managed to win or come close in the time we had.

This blog has a fascinating list of old board games, going back 500 years - amazing to see what was considering fun and entertaining centuries ago. Even older games have been found in Persia dating back three thousand years... even before the time when the first d20 was invented by the Romans, according to some legends.

Decades ago, electronic board games seemed to be poised to bridge the gap between the old and new, for computers to take their place and 'enhance' the games of old. Yet after a flurry of early electronic attempts, the trend seems to have tapered off, perhaps due to the added expense and unnecessary complication of already simple game design. There is a great Classic Electronic Game List here, which has quite a few games that I wanted back in the day... but again, due to the expense, never managed to pick up.

I'm quite happy that my parents were not the type to discourage me from my gaming habits when I was younger, especially RPG's - sites like this one are obviously a patient response to the other type of parent who just "doesn't get" certain types of games their kids play. I won't get into the usual stupidity of the old D&D Debate, which thankfully seems to have died out thanks in large to the internet and now turned simply into another facet of 'g33k' cultural stigma.

Nov 28 - Black Friday

Today is Black Friday in the USA, the day after their Thanksgiving that traditionally kicks off the holiday shopping season, to use a football image - again, quite appropriate to an American holiday image.

The Canadian Guide to Black Friday Ads is always useful for those who are looking to snag some pre-Christmas deals. Not that it is a great idea to be cross-border shopping now, given the swing that the dollar has made towards favouring the US, but sometimes there are things you simply cannot get in Canada, like TiVo - the real TiVo, not the watered-down version releasted here in early 2008.

Given the current economic uncertainty, days like Black Friday can provide an inkling for retailers and economists in general as to the shape of the upcoming holiday season. According to this article from the New York Times, today showed a spike in sales as shoppers flocked to find deals... but the doom-and-gloom feeling seems to be hovering over the whole world. Not a good time for many, right now, especially given the housing slump in the US.

More in this in an upcoming blog.

Nov 29 - Birthday Belly Dancing

Out for lunch today at John's Place downtown, to celebrate my Dad's birthday. I love quirky, unique restaurants for their ambiance almost as much as for their tasty menu, and John's has both. As previously mentioned, the place is always packed - so much so that they will only take reservations for tables of four or more people! The staff are fast, friendly and efficient, moving tables fast to get folks waiting by the door seated and served. Did I mention the food? I ordered a 3-stack of pancakes, a nice simple breakfast served all-day on weekends here... and couldn't down more than two pancakes, they were so gigantic! Perfectly cooked too, not crumbly or soggy inside - just fantastic! Love this place.

Later in the evening I was out again, this time for a trek downtown. It's been a while since I was down there on a Saturday night, not that I missed all the loudly-singing folks, or the strange sights and smells... well, maybe a little, but that soon passed. A little time was spent in Chapters looking for new books in a few series I read showed that the Holiday Rush is in full swing - small swarms of book lovers buzzed around the shelves hunting for gifts and good reads. The Starbuck's upstairs wasn't crowded though; perhaps the news of the massive store closings in the States had people scared?

I had dinner with a friend at Periklis, a Greek restaurant that is MUCH larger on the inside than it appears! Much like Al's House was, it is a multi-level dimly-lit whitewashed hidden gem of the city. I stuck to my usual chicken slouvlaki and hummus, both of which were served fast and fresh - geez, I'm starting to sound like a food critic, something for which I am eminently unqualified.

The highlight of the evening was live belly dancing... better than dead, which tonight's crowd was. The dancer gave it her best though, smiling and energetic throughout the half-hour she spent under coloured lights with her bells, as well as among the tables. The poor guy whose birthday happened to be tonight got a lot of attention; guess he should have paid more mind to the 'Live Belly Dancing on Saturdays!' sign before he sat down to dinner here. Too bad I was spoiled by Moira The Black back in my SCA days; she had the energy of ten dancers and did backflips around the campfire - amazing, I've never seen the like before or since. This YouTube video is a pale imitation, but serves to illustrate my point - I think I'd pop a gut if I tried to move like those well-trained folks.

Nov 30 - Duty Calls Silently

Ah, back to the Sunday Slog... which isn't so bad of late really while waiting for the holiday rush to commence. Today was actually a steady day, indicative of things to come perhaps, but everyone who came in was quite pleasant despite their hurry to be somewhere else. Given that it was a somber, rainy weekend, I think that some folk welcome the bright, if crowded, malls all bedecked for the season.

It looks like I won't be playing Xbox online with some of my friends for the next while, as they have all jumped ship, so to speak, to the next Big Game... Call of Duty 5: World At War. While I am a fan of WWII sims as well as the COD series, I hate buying a new game every year and watching the old one sit on the shelf gathering dust. This may be the way things are, but I still miss older multiplayer games like Battlefield 1942 and its ilk. Unplayable now that I have been 'spoiled' by the new control methods and slick graphics of newer games; like trying to fit into an old short two sizes too small, it's just uncomfortable for very long.

We'll see how this coming year shapes up in terms of free time for me; I plan on being busy on various projects which I hope will start to turn a profit, in some manner, for me after some hard work. Which means time will be an issue, and as always something has to give... if that means I lose out on playing games with my friends a few weekends a month, well, that stinks. But I can't do good work when I am tired, and losing sleep to further projects is itself a losing project, so we'll see how I can manage to balance things depending on what presents itself in the near future.


No spiders in this week's blog( sorry Lucas )yet there is always hope of an arachnid making an appearance in these storied pages... we'll see. Faith, good readers, is something to cling to when something else is clinging to your face in the middle of the night...

Entertainment, Economics and Existence

This week finds me dragging a little, as some small foibles start to add up to become bothersome interludes. Still. If you didn't see last week's photo slideshow( Nov. 16th entry ) about Fall here in Victoria, go have a look.

Nov 17th - The Business of Existing

The phrase "There's never enough time in a day" seems to mean many different things to many different people, to use another well-worn cliche.

For some, getting through each day is a small miracle, a wonder that they made it through to another sunset and live in hope of seeing another sunrise, that their illness or poverty or other problems will relent for another day, giving them some peace from their personal burdens.

Choice is there too: choosing to live as you will, the decisions adding up over years to dig your path through the dark woods of the unknown future. Some choose family, marrying their first sweethearts and defining their lives by the creation and rearing of new ones, hopefully in ways that turn children into stable, wonderful people that are a credit to their parents. Others choose careers, perhaps with family as a stable influence on their never-ending climb to the top of their profession. Still more, many more, deal with life as it comes, often getting lost in the blizzard of bills, commitments, accidents, joys and sorrows that fly at us from all directions as we try to make sense of it all.

Daily life, all the little things that pass us by, large and small, are the ticks of the clock. Ever-forward, with fond glances back at what was, things remembered with a golden glow seen through the ever-more opague window of the past.

Yet what does it all mean?

Bhuddist monks spend their lives contemplating existence. Military personnel give their lives in the performance of their duty. Politicians spend their lives getting others to believe what they say, for good or ill. Doctors heal wounds physical, while lawyers bandage other wounds with words and money. All professions, all choices made, even the choice of not resisting what life pushes in front of you.

Meaning is what we bring to our lives, the interpretations we put on what we experience. As the expression goes, sometimes the glass is half-full, other times half-empty... and sometimes the glass breaks. How you deal with your own interpretations gives meaning to them, and shows your mettle to others... for some, this is important, but for other people, what other people think is the last thing they care about, sometimes for unselfish and purely personal reasons.

What you do, how you exist, how you find your place in the puzzle of life, is your business. Judging others by your own standards may help you find your place, but you should always keep in mind that your standards often cannot apply to others - they have their own path to make through the woods.

This brings me back to my own situation, far away from my other existence in Niagara. It is startlingly similar in some ways though, as I have come to realize. The loss of friends, of family, of places, of pets and jobs and things all tumble one around in life, nudging or tossing you in new directions. The same applies to new jobs, new friends, new places... the old fades and the new glides into the empty space of loss. Friends who are no longer in touch, old loves lost, old jobs remembered for the funny and not the frustration of the day to day grind. People who have changed, grown distant with time and other commitments, taking us away from each other though we try, failingly, to stay in touch.

I suppose that is what bothers me, that things cannot stay the same, no matter how much we want them to. When friends become aquiantances, then just names on cards sent at christmas or birthdays... that saddens me sometimes. To know that our choices have separated us after long years together, for good or bad, and that to see each other again is to see in their eyes the distance that those choices have put between us. A distance bridged, for a time, with shared stories and laughter, to bring with us when we must part once more to return to the separate lives that our choices have become.

Nov 18th - Sleepless Near Seattle

I was awake tonight, far into the morning, for no reason I could disern. The quiet hours ticked on, while I lay sleepless, the red glow of the clock shouting silently that I should be dreaming.

It was as through I was a spectator to my own thoughts, watching them chase each other around the room in the dark but unable to see them clearly. My subconscious mind was obviously in high gear, but my conscious mind would not just shut it out and sleep. Damned annoying, to know that there are things bothering me on some level, but that I cannot bring to the fore... and so lose sleep over them.

Plus, it didn't help that the garbage truck made its usual early arrival at 7:10am... or that an hour before that, I received yet another "Uknown Call" to my 935-Niagara line. Which is frustrating, since you'd think that with all of today's modern CID tech, you could trace most every call... but when it shows up as all 0000's there is little anyone can do, especially on a VOIP line. Apart from trying to initiate a police trace, I cannot think of anything I can do to find out who's trying to sell me shoes at 6am PST... likely from a 9am autodialer in Ontario, or somewhere out east. Since I am on the National DoNotCall list, and the jerks don't leave a msg, I am just going to have to wait and see... and lose
sleep.

Ah well. At times like these, I think about how cool it would be to have a TARDIS... here's a look at the 45 Coolest Moments in Doctor Who history.

Nov 19th - Snappy TV

A long, long day... I ended up working 10 hours, due to two last-minute customers with large, complicated transactions. I really hate the part of human nature that makes people wait until just the last moment to really screw up someone else's day - combined with the other after-closing tasks that I had to get done, I was really tired by the time I cycled home in the cool mist.

Safely at home once more, I watched S:AAB ep 'Hostile Visit' which had a moment in it. On the eve of a suicide mission, one of the characters mentions the date... November 19th, today! I guess it's a 1 in 365 chance, or similar odds, but it still snapped me to hear it. The character talked about how she had fallen in love with Autumn, all the romance of the slight chill in the air, and how she would never see it again.

I was reading some of the SG: Atlantis production blogs, which are rather interesting for the insight( if slight )they give into the world of TV production. All the more interesting for that it takes place in Vancouver, which is not as far away as it was from Niagara - day-trip distant, in fact. Again, too bad both series are now over with, although SG: Universe is in the works, showing that the franchise has life left in it yet.

Nov 20th - Um, your hat...!

A promised windstorm never materialized today, despite some nasty-looking dark clouds that swooped in from the west. The rain was heavy, on an off, in that peculiar passing way that happens here in Victoria: pours for ten minutes, then light sprinkles for the same, then repeat. Nothing like the hours-long soakings I am used to from Niagara, or even the brief deluges that soaked me in Florida. I still remember a vast, dark cloud crossing the sky when I was living in Fonthill, a black wedge that reminded me of nothing other than a Star Destroyer moving against the lighter clouds around it. Yeesh.

One of the last customers of the day provided some entertainment: a solid construction worker, he came in shaking the rain from his jacket... and trailing smoke from his hat! I waited a beat, then said with a straight face a phrase I never thought I would utter: "Umm... you know your hat is on fire, right?" He said something colourful and then reached up to swat at his right ear... dislodging a still-burning cigarette and crushing down his briefly-smouldering ballcap. Apparently he had not quite pinched-out his cigarette before tucking it behind his ear and entering the store, so it had started to burn his hat! Luckily only a few seconds had passed, and his hat was wet from the rain... otherwise, he might have had a really bad evening. I'd not want to be the first person in MMart history to lose a customer due to a flaming hat...

Nov 21st - Economics

Mulling over the current economic downturn, I was perusing the 'net for opinions, articles and general thoughts about how things are going to go for the next six months. With the downturn affecting consumer spending, retailers are holding their breath for the next thirty days to see if wallets will open.

DollarStretcher.com recently posted an article about how the market downturn is affecting people's retirement plans. The article is interesting as it looks at various life stages of investors, from people just starting out fresh from university, to middle-career folk, to those already retired and watching their plans being jumbled by the economic uncertainty. Though it is not nearly as bad as the Great Depression( what was so great about it, anyway? )... from the people I have talked to who lived through it, the gist is that if you haven't lost everything and need to stand in line for days to apply for a job, then things aren't as bad as they were back then. At least every guy wore a decent hat and shoes.

Myself, I have migrated to a low-key holiday season... the days of ripping open presents under a tree are long past for me, save reminiscing over old and faded photos. I enjoy the holidays now more for their good cheer than anything else, though that's hard to muster when shoulder-to-shoulder with crowds in a shopping mall - hence my plan to avoid most such places evenings and weekends in December. I might enjoy the holiday music piped in as well, with less exposure to it; one can only hear "Jingle Bells" so many times before it becomes grating on the ear with false cheer.

Nov 22 - Overtime Saturday

The morning dawn'd bright and clear, though clouds lurking on the horizon shook their fists at the sun as they blurred across that firey disk from time to time. Much better than a gray, flat ceiling of clouds, glowing in one spot as the sun tries to burn its way through to smile on the earth below. Yep.

I worked an extra shift today at our Colwood store, which brought back some memories of Welland Ave in Niagara, where most every store, including Welland Ave, had a Timmy's nearby. In matter of fact, Colwood has the best setup I have seen: literally steps from the door, there is a Tim Horton's, and a few steps the other way is a Wendy's. Not that I eat out all that much anymore, but it pained me, almost literally, to see that the Bacon Mushroom Melt was back at Wendy's after a two-year absence... must be that time of year again - loved that sandwich. Though my coworkers back at Office Place asked me NOT to have it for lunch when I was working, as it tended to... disagree... with my digestion. But it tasted so GOOD. *sigh* Now that I have the gallbladder issues, beef has been off the menu for some years now, so I have made do with Chicken Grills, as well as enjoying soups from Timmy's such as Potato Bacon: now THAT is a satisfying meal.

Nov 23 - Cow Bay

Took a road trip today up to Cowichan Bay to celebrate my dad's upcoming birthday, he's turning sixty one... glad to see he has been retired for ten years already, and not the other way around, to be still waiting for retirement.

It was a scenic ride, as the weather cooperated and the clouds stayed away. We traveled up the Malahat Drive, hugging the mountainsides and taking in the great views across the Saanich Inlet - there are a few scenic outlooks along the way that are simply breathtaking; mere words cannot describe the sweep of the forested hills, the deep blue of the waters or the pearlescent snow-topped glow of Mt. Baker far to the east. The smell of dead fish when we passed Goldstream park was very strong, even with the vents off... I am not sure when that will end; hopefully after Christmas.

We had lunch at the Oceanfront Grand Resort & Marina, which is renowned on the island for its amazing Sunday buffet. It reminded me in a way of the Beacon Harbourside Hotel in Jordan, which my family used to head to on occasion for their Sunday buffet... which I recall as being rather limited, but they had lots of pancakes. We used to travel all over to check out new places for Sunday buffets, even up to Hamilton a few times, though most of the restaurants we went to are long since gone - anyone remember the old Julio's on Ontario St., where Jack Astor's is now?

The evening vanished in the usual blur of catch-up, as I juggled laundry loads with cleaning, to get things done so I can enjoy my total day-off tomorrow. Supposed to be bright and sunny, albeit chilly, so I may decide to take a walk around the block or to Cook St. Village, though doing so by myself really stinks sometimes... I can think just as well at home here, where it is warmer and less likely to rain on me indoors. MUCH less likely. Not that I mind the rain, when it could be snow... *smiles*


No spiders this week; the closed windows and scattered chestnuts around the apartment seem to have put paid to their nocturnal ramblings. Which is nice, as they don't pay any portion of the rent, the sods.