In less than a week, I'll be in Niagara - booyah!
July 20 - Bees and RPG's
Bees - they're in trouble, and the whole world's been a-buzz about what may be causing the massive decline in bee populations, termed 'Colony Collapse Disorder'. Much like my mention last week about the world's coral reefs dying off, the loss of bees would mean the collapse of most plant life on earth. Today news arrived that the culprit is not widespread cell phone use, as many had surmised... but instead is the spread of a tiny parasite called Nosema ceranae. Now that the cause has been identified, steps can bee taken to bee proactive to prevent further losses and eventually protect against the little monsters. Good news for honey lovers everywhere! Update: According to Lucas, who has the ear of a local beekeeper, larger hives have often been placed too close together in an area, resulting in too little work for too many bees. How about that, eh?
Speaking of people with bees in their bonnets: Kingdom of Loathing is a bare-bones, dead-simple online RPG that's free and ludicrously funny - how can you go wrong with stick figures holding swords, where you can choose a class such as Accordion Thief? You owe it to yourself to check it out... but don't loathe me for it. In a related vein, UrbanDead is an online survival horror game, where you.... well, try to survive. It's a little like being inside a slow-motion version of Land of the Dead, but unique in that you can play a zombie - how's that for fun? Brains... need brains. Yum!
And what would today be without mention of the Lunar Landing Anniversary, 40 years ago today, 4 years before I was even born? I remember as a child looking up at the full moon of nights, thinking "Wow, we've actually been there, all that distance away... we can do anything." Then I'd go back inside and watch some more TV - what does that say about the modern yearning for exploration? Couch surfing, that's what it says - bring it to you with a remote control, instead of going out and putting boots on the mountaintop.
July 21 - Test Screening
I went into Victoria for a late doctor's appointment today, to see if any cause for my lingering nausea could be found. Alas, the specialist was unable to make a firm diagnosis, putting me on some 'test' antacid pills for a few months and booking me a 'scope appointment... in a year's time. Yeah... I hope to have that moved up somewhat, as I really want to ferret out whatever lingering cause I have for the unpredictable nausea. Ah well... at least it's on the books.
On the way home, I purchased a few lengths of 2" wide cedar from Home Depot, which I cut down with a handsaw once I was home. They are for my screen door project - I've never built something like that before, but I've thought it through and it seems really simple. The wood I cut today will make the frame, with two smaller pieces for corner supports... and a bit left over for mistakes. No time today to do the rest though... I had to look into some nice news that the PC Gaming Industry is not dead, as everyone keeps saying year after year for the last decade or so. Though the guys at EP Weekly have said repeatedly that the "best gaming value for your dollar" is to run things on a Macbook Pro laptop - who knew? Check out some compelling facts on the topic here - you may be surprised!
I also checked out RoboGames.net, which is the home of robot combat - for real. Much like Robot Wars of years ago on TV, the RoboGames have robot combat, as well as other pursuits like robo-soccer and other similar events. Yet the crowd favourite by far is when one metal machine is bashing the heck out of another - some of the designs show incredible talent and skill, not to mention the tactics used in the combat itself.
July 22 - Whadda mean, receipts?
Joy of joys. Almost 2 years since I moved, yet just now I get a letter from the CRA asking me to prove my moving expenses from back then..? Good thing I keep all my receipts, so it looks like I'll be spending a day or two gathering things together to send out as proof. Just when you think you are ahead, something else tosses itself in your path like a garden rake wanting to meet with your nose when you're smelling the roses... I wonder how many IRS agents are gardeners, in the US?
On that note, a good site to visit for tons of good free Canadian financial advice is CanadianBusiness.com, home of several magazies including a fave of mine, MoneySense.ca - pick up a copy at your local store if you get a chance, it's well worth the investment. You should also ensure you are VERY aware of the many ways that you can be a victim of identity theft these days - just recently, a local man close by to where I live was arrested and found to have been a major ID theft criminal; read about the story here. Criminals are becoming more and more sophisticated, getting organized to the point where their activities resemble that of large corporations, as this article talks about - scary stuff. Learn how to protect yourself( plus educate your friends & family )against this sublte but life-changing crime here.
Of course, you could always wait and try to win the lottery. But in this guy's case, it meant he was immediately sent to jail..!
This evening was slightly annoying, as I kept getting calls from our HelpDesk - as a store manager, I'm responsible for my store, and right now we're having... issues... with our internet provider. At least, we think it's the provider. As I'm not able to go into detail, I'll leave it at that I received a total of 6 calls tonight, on my day off... none of which I could ignore, and none of which ended with me able to actually fix the problem - that's somewhere up the pipe. Frustrating, but eventually we'll get it sorted.
July 23 - Happy Halo Daze
Happy Birthday to Simon, who is graciously hosting me while I stay in Niagara this coming week. I have quite a few fond memories of gaming days at his place, gathering with the guys for some pen-n-paper RPG adventure, or the louder & more frenetic Halo Days. A dozen guys packed into the place, beer & chips scattered amongst cables and humming Xbox consoles, eyes glued to glowing screens and faces lit by flashes of pixelated destruction - great fun! Did I mention the insults? "Pete, get your stick on the ice!" was my favourite - thanks, Dave. Too bad there's no 'duck & cover' button for any of the Halo games...
After work, I made an unscheduled stop for dinner with my parents at the Smokin' Bones Cookshack, which has been on my list of Places to Eat for some time. Located in central Langford, it's not much to look at from outside: just a place at one end of a plaza, without even a patio. We arrived at the perfect time: a little after 5pm, just before the dinner rush which meant we managed to score one of the 'spare' tables near the entrance - the rest of the 40 or so tables had already been reserved far in advance! The menu was simple, with decent prices - I chose the 1/2 smoked chicken with gluten-free BBQ sauce and garlic potatoes. It was fantastic! The meat was perfect: moist but not greasy, firm but not underdone... it peeled away from the bone with a slight tearing sound I have never heard from any roasted chicken before. The skin was a perfect blend of smokey BBQ and tasty texture, combining with the potatoes for a sumptuous taste feast, made all the better by the fact that the restaurant only uses local food sources, supporting the local farmers 100%. I had to take some home, as there was simply too much to take in all in one sitting.
Fueled by the fine meal, I completed the screen door project in a little over an hour, screwing the frame together using a milk crate as a set square. The screen went on with the help of my dad and a newly-purchased staple gun from the nearby Home Depot( conveniently located next to where I work )with nearly straight lines holding down the screen. Total cost of the project, including wood, screen, stapler, staples and screws? $42.00 with taxes... read into that what you will. All in all, I am very pleased with the results, especially as it is going to get very warm here in the coming few weeks - projected around 33 degrees with humidity, on average. Catching the cool breezes in the morning and evening from the lake, while closing up the house during the day, should keep temperatures well below the sweltering 30+ degrees we suffered through in early June this year.
July 24 - I tune, You Tune..
Work today was hectic, but several problems I had been dreading the appearance of never surfaced or solved themselves, so by the evening I had breathed a large mental sigh of relief. In case you missed it last week, you can relax of an evening watching episodes of Family Guy for free at FamilyGuyDirect.com - again I have to say, it's VERY rare to find such a site outside the USA, where media contents rights usually mean such sites are only available within that country's borders. Boo!
After much annoyance, I finally managed to get an iTunes account working with my credit card( seems many people are having problems with iTunes and their cards )so I can now use it with my new iPod Shuffle( won it @ work free a few weeks ago! ). I also snagged a year-long pass to Stoked from iTunes, not wanting to wait for it to pass me by on Teletoon at odd times of day - I am three hours behind here in BC, y'know. Sweet! Definitely be sure you check out some of the episodes on Teletoon.com if you haven't already; the animation is stellar( hi Mike! )and the show is just plain fun to watch.
Ever since Dr. No, people have wanted to hug a nuke. Now, you can. Sweet! And here I thought post-apocalyptic themes were all doom & gloom...
July 25 - Luminara Windows
Do you hate Windows Vista, or even just dislike it more than the next person? There's a good article at TechRepublic that covers 10 Reasons Why Vista Haters will Love Windows7... which I have preordered, so we'll see how the final version turns out - it was recently announced that it's on track for an October 2009 release. C|net also has a nice video that talks about how nice Win7 is... but then we heard that about Vista previous to it's release too, didn't we?
July 20 - Bees and RPG's
Bees - they're in trouble, and the whole world's been a-buzz about what may be causing the massive decline in bee populations, termed 'Colony Collapse Disorder'. Much like my mention last week about the world's coral reefs dying off, the loss of bees would mean the collapse of most plant life on earth. Today news arrived that the culprit is not widespread cell phone use, as many had surmised... but instead is the spread of a tiny parasite called Nosema ceranae. Now that the cause has been identified, steps can bee taken to bee proactive to prevent further losses and eventually protect against the little monsters. Good news for honey lovers everywhere! Update: According to Lucas, who has the ear of a local beekeeper, larger hives have often been placed too close together in an area, resulting in too little work for too many bees. How about that, eh?
Speaking of people with bees in their bonnets: Kingdom of Loathing is a bare-bones, dead-simple online RPG that's free and ludicrously funny - how can you go wrong with stick figures holding swords, where you can choose a class such as Accordion Thief? You owe it to yourself to check it out... but don't loathe me for it. In a related vein, UrbanDead is an online survival horror game, where you.... well, try to survive. It's a little like being inside a slow-motion version of Land of the Dead, but unique in that you can play a zombie - how's that for fun? Brains... need brains. Yum!
And what would today be without mention of the Lunar Landing Anniversary, 40 years ago today, 4 years before I was even born? I remember as a child looking up at the full moon of nights, thinking "Wow, we've actually been there, all that distance away... we can do anything." Then I'd go back inside and watch some more TV - what does that say about the modern yearning for exploration? Couch surfing, that's what it says - bring it to you with a remote control, instead of going out and putting boots on the mountaintop.
July 21 - Test Screening
I went into Victoria for a late doctor's appointment today, to see if any cause for my lingering nausea could be found. Alas, the specialist was unable to make a firm diagnosis, putting me on some 'test' antacid pills for a few months and booking me a 'scope appointment... in a year's time. Yeah... I hope to have that moved up somewhat, as I really want to ferret out whatever lingering cause I have for the unpredictable nausea. Ah well... at least it's on the books.
On the way home, I purchased a few lengths of 2" wide cedar from Home Depot, which I cut down with a handsaw once I was home. They are for my screen door project - I've never built something like that before, but I've thought it through and it seems really simple. The wood I cut today will make the frame, with two smaller pieces for corner supports... and a bit left over for mistakes. No time today to do the rest though... I had to look into some nice news that the PC Gaming Industry is not dead, as everyone keeps saying year after year for the last decade or so. Though the guys at EP Weekly have said repeatedly that the "best gaming value for your dollar" is to run things on a Macbook Pro laptop - who knew? Check out some compelling facts on the topic here - you may be surprised!
I also checked out RoboGames.net, which is the home of robot combat - for real. Much like Robot Wars of years ago on TV, the RoboGames have robot combat, as well as other pursuits like robo-soccer and other similar events. Yet the crowd favourite by far is when one metal machine is bashing the heck out of another - some of the designs show incredible talent and skill, not to mention the tactics used in the combat itself.
July 22 - Whadda mean, receipts?
Joy of joys. Almost 2 years since I moved, yet just now I get a letter from the CRA asking me to prove my moving expenses from back then..? Good thing I keep all my receipts, so it looks like I'll be spending a day or two gathering things together to send out as proof. Just when you think you are ahead, something else tosses itself in your path like a garden rake wanting to meet with your nose when you're smelling the roses... I wonder how many IRS agents are gardeners, in the US?
On that note, a good site to visit for tons of good free Canadian financial advice is CanadianBusiness.com, home of several magazies including a fave of mine, MoneySense.ca - pick up a copy at your local store if you get a chance, it's well worth the investment. You should also ensure you are VERY aware of the many ways that you can be a victim of identity theft these days - just recently, a local man close by to where I live was arrested and found to have been a major ID theft criminal; read about the story here. Criminals are becoming more and more sophisticated, getting organized to the point where their activities resemble that of large corporations, as this article talks about - scary stuff. Learn how to protect yourself( plus educate your friends & family )against this sublte but life-changing crime here.
Of course, you could always wait and try to win the lottery. But in this guy's case, it meant he was immediately sent to jail..!
This evening was slightly annoying, as I kept getting calls from our HelpDesk - as a store manager, I'm responsible for my store, and right now we're having... issues... with our internet provider. At least, we think it's the provider. As I'm not able to go into detail, I'll leave it at that I received a total of 6 calls tonight, on my day off... none of which I could ignore, and none of which ended with me able to actually fix the problem - that's somewhere up the pipe. Frustrating, but eventually we'll get it sorted.
July 23 - Happy Halo Daze
Happy Birthday to Simon, who is graciously hosting me while I stay in Niagara this coming week. I have quite a few fond memories of gaming days at his place, gathering with the guys for some pen-n-paper RPG adventure, or the louder & more frenetic Halo Days. A dozen guys packed into the place, beer & chips scattered amongst cables and humming Xbox consoles, eyes glued to glowing screens and faces lit by flashes of pixelated destruction - great fun! Did I mention the insults? "Pete, get your stick on the ice!" was my favourite - thanks, Dave. Too bad there's no 'duck & cover' button for any of the Halo games...
After work, I made an unscheduled stop for dinner with my parents at the Smokin' Bones Cookshack, which has been on my list of Places to Eat for some time. Located in central Langford, it's not much to look at from outside: just a place at one end of a plaza, without even a patio. We arrived at the perfect time: a little after 5pm, just before the dinner rush which meant we managed to score one of the 'spare' tables near the entrance - the rest of the 40 or so tables had already been reserved far in advance! The menu was simple, with decent prices - I chose the 1/2 smoked chicken with gluten-free BBQ sauce and garlic potatoes. It was fantastic! The meat was perfect: moist but not greasy, firm but not underdone... it peeled away from the bone with a slight tearing sound I have never heard from any roasted chicken before. The skin was a perfect blend of smokey BBQ and tasty texture, combining with the potatoes for a sumptuous taste feast, made all the better by the fact that the restaurant only uses local food sources, supporting the local farmers 100%. I had to take some home, as there was simply too much to take in all in one sitting.
Fueled by the fine meal, I completed the screen door project in a little over an hour, screwing the frame together using a milk crate as a set square. The screen went on with the help of my dad and a newly-purchased staple gun from the nearby Home Depot( conveniently located next to where I work )with nearly straight lines holding down the screen. Total cost of the project, including wood, screen, stapler, staples and screws? $42.00 with taxes... read into that what you will. All in all, I am very pleased with the results, especially as it is going to get very warm here in the coming few weeks - projected around 33 degrees with humidity, on average. Catching the cool breezes in the morning and evening from the lake, while closing up the house during the day, should keep temperatures well below the sweltering 30+ degrees we suffered through in early June this year.
July 24 - I tune, You Tune..
Work today was hectic, but several problems I had been dreading the appearance of never surfaced or solved themselves, so by the evening I had breathed a large mental sigh of relief. In case you missed it last week, you can relax of an evening watching episodes of Family Guy for free at FamilyGuyDirect.com - again I have to say, it's VERY rare to find such a site outside the USA, where media contents rights usually mean such sites are only available within that country's borders. Boo!
After much annoyance, I finally managed to get an iTunes account working with my credit card( seems many people are having problems with iTunes and their cards )so I can now use it with my new iPod Shuffle( won it @ work free a few weeks ago! ). I also snagged a year-long pass to Stoked from iTunes, not wanting to wait for it to pass me by on Teletoon at odd times of day - I am three hours behind here in BC, y'know. Sweet! Definitely be sure you check out some of the episodes on Teletoon.com if you haven't already; the animation is stellar( hi Mike! )and the show is just plain fun to watch.
Ever since Dr. No, people have wanted to hug a nuke. Now, you can. Sweet! And here I thought post-apocalyptic themes were all doom & gloom...
July 25 - Luminara Windows
Do you hate Windows Vista, or even just dislike it more than the next person? There's a good article at TechRepublic that covers 10 Reasons Why Vista Haters will Love Windows7... which I have preordered, so we'll see how the final version turns out - it was recently announced that it's on track for an October 2009 release. C|net also has a nice video that talks about how nice Win7 is... but then we heard that about Vista previous to it's release too, didn't we?
For the Mac users among you: here's a YouTube video demo of someone running the Windows7 beta on a Macbook Pro - very cool!
Sooo... if you're brave enough to upgrade, you should know by now what you should do: Back Up Your Data. I have four external hard drives here, plus a few others kicking around, and I still find myself looking for a bit more room some days( though recent advances in 1TB drives means things are a LOT faster under the hood ). Yet eventually every hard drive will die on you - if you're lucky, it will only be corrupted yet still spin up when powered. In which case, it would be damn handy to have a USB stick with a few data recovery programs on hand to rescue those pictures of your kid's first steps, that recent birthday party, or what-have-you. Because it will happen to you - losing data is an experience you only ever do once, because once it's all gone you never, ever want that sort of thing to happen again.
Until the next time you put off that regular, boring monthly backup... especially if your area is experiencing extreme rainfall, causing flooding - like the last 3 days in Southern Ontario / Niagara! It rained here tonight, which was a welcome respite from a month-long dry spell - forest fires are a very real danger here in the summer, with tons of dry fuel just waiting for a spark. I actually heard some rolls of thunder last night too, for a few minutes - very unusual here,
Tonight was also the annual Luminara Festival in Victoria, which quite literally was a washout thanks to the rain as mentioned above. Which is too bad, really - it's quite a nice night event, but I didn't attend this year as I don't really have anyone to go with. Last year, all I did was wander around with a camera trying to capture the lovely images with a device that wasn't really suited to the low-light conditions.
July 26 - Hot COD4 and Civ!
Hoboy, it's hot out today - highs reached 30 degrees, plus humidity thanks to the rain yesterday, lots of moisture out there to bake out of the ground and plants. My screen door's proving useful, though again only in the morning and evenings as it's too hot to let the wind blow through the place - it'd just add to the heat, so we try to limit the hot airflow during the 10am-4pm period. S'working well so far...
The heat hasn't stopped the crowds from gathering in the park next door though - once again the dock is packed with people baking themselves silly in the sun, where the smarter few of the bunch soaking in the cooler lake waters. A few of them will likely get sunburned... and perhaps develop some skin problems because of it. Which, being in Canada, means that our health system will foot most of the bill - unlike in the USA, where 46 million people don't have any form of health insurance. That's a scary thing folks; even scarier is that within 50 years, projections show that the majority of the United State's GDP will be going towards supporting pensioners and the failing health care system, easily outstripping defence spending. What kind of a country that will create is beyond my imagining right now.
I want, SO want, one of THESE for my next birthday. The big questions: where to park it, and when to use it? In the meantime, I still want one of these too.
Typical plan for my Sundays off is... Morning: do stuff around the house, play a bit of COD4. Noon: sit out on the deck, read a bit until the Noise Next Door gets too distracting, then inside again. Afternoon: work on the blog, watch some shows like DottoTech TV, which is a great ongoing show whose genial host Dotto goes over useful new tech for the g33k in all of us, and best of all: it's a 100% Canadian show.
In the late afternoon, I played a game of Civ:Rev with Lucas & Nigel... at least, we tried to. The 4th game lasted the longest, though Lucas was eliminated early on - payback for the Spanish Debacle! Connection problems caused the last game to tank though, so we gave up for the night on that - disappointing. Bill, Matt & a pal of his and I turned to COD4 again for a few hours and though we didn't do so well, Matt showed me a few things about different game matches I didn't know, plus some tips on using some familiar weapons in different situations - very helpful, thanks! For those interested: the M16A4 has a 3-round burst, very useful when paired with a red-dot sight on most medium to long-range boards. Quick and accurate, it really helped me balance my score in several matches, though I still have to work on my close-in game. Matt also suggested a UAV Jammer paired with a silencer, again a winning combo for the Lone Wolf Assassin. A few more minutes downloading some things from XboxLive, and then I turned in for the night.
Tonight was also the annual Luminara Festival in Victoria, which quite literally was a washout thanks to the rain as mentioned above. Which is too bad, really - it's quite a nice night event, but I didn't attend this year as I don't really have anyone to go with. Last year, all I did was wander around with a camera trying to capture the lovely images with a device that wasn't really suited to the low-light conditions.
July 26 - Hot COD4 and Civ!
Hoboy, it's hot out today - highs reached 30 degrees, plus humidity thanks to the rain yesterday, lots of moisture out there to bake out of the ground and plants. My screen door's proving useful, though again only in the morning and evenings as it's too hot to let the wind blow through the place - it'd just add to the heat, so we try to limit the hot airflow during the 10am-4pm period. S'working well so far...
The heat hasn't stopped the crowds from gathering in the park next door though - once again the dock is packed with people baking themselves silly in the sun, where the smarter few of the bunch soaking in the cooler lake waters. A few of them will likely get sunburned... and perhaps develop some skin problems because of it. Which, being in Canada, means that our health system will foot most of the bill - unlike in the USA, where 46 million people don't have any form of health insurance. That's a scary thing folks; even scarier is that within 50 years, projections show that the majority of the United State's GDP will be going towards supporting pensioners and the failing health care system, easily outstripping defence spending. What kind of a country that will create is beyond my imagining right now.
I want, SO want, one of THESE for my next birthday. The big questions: where to park it, and when to use it? In the meantime, I still want one of these too.
Typical plan for my Sundays off is... Morning: do stuff around the house, play a bit of COD4. Noon: sit out on the deck, read a bit until the Noise Next Door gets too distracting, then inside again. Afternoon: work on the blog, watch some shows like DottoTech TV, which is a great ongoing show whose genial host Dotto goes over useful new tech for the g33k in all of us, and best of all: it's a 100% Canadian show.
In the late afternoon, I played a game of Civ:Rev with Lucas & Nigel... at least, we tried to. The 4th game lasted the longest, though Lucas was eliminated early on - payback for the Spanish Debacle! Connection problems caused the last game to tank though, so we gave up for the night on that - disappointing. Bill, Matt & a pal of his and I turned to COD4 again for a few hours and though we didn't do so well, Matt showed me a few things about different game matches I didn't know, plus some tips on using some familiar weapons in different situations - very helpful, thanks! For those interested: the M16A4 has a 3-round burst, very useful when paired with a red-dot sight on most medium to long-range boards. Quick and accurate, it really helped me balance my score in several matches, though I still have to work on my close-in game. Matt also suggested a UAV Jammer paired with a silencer, again a winning combo for the Lone Wolf Assassin. A few more minutes downloading some things from XboxLive, and then I turned in for the night.
Next time I update the blog, it will be from Niagara! Yee-hah!
