Ever have one of those weeks? Maybe this wasn't it, but it felt like a close second...!
Sept 21 - Dead Things
Today was a series of frustrating events at work that scotched the whole day’s plan I had, to help train a newer employee from another store – that just didn’t happen. The main disruption was our server, which has been painfully slow since I took over the store in the spring. A simple call to our HelpDesk turned into an all-day odyssey of techs trying to make sense of the mess that is our server – to no avail. By day’s end they had us back& running again( after 4 hours without being able to efficiently serve customers )with an appointment to have the thing totally replaced( finally!!! )tomorrow morning.
Dead-ish: has anyone seen the new movie Zombieland, with Woody Harrelson in it? Although reviewers compare it to the much-loved Shaun of the Dead, I also hear it's got its own flair. I'd love to see a TV series set in a zombie-infested world, and word has it that the comic series The Walking Dead is close to being picked up by AMC for development. Mmm.... brains! No, wait... that was a TV executive! Spit it out!
In the meantime I leave you with: Twisted Disney Princesses - some are zombies, some aren't... but all are brilliantly twisted. Great job by the artist, especially Ariel!
Sept 22 - Serving Coffee and Dragons
A long, long day Part 2... I was @ work an hour early, to let the tech in carrying our new server to be installed. Things thankfully went without a hitch, though we did open five minutes late; big whoop. As I had said for the last 6 months, the old server didn't have what it took to run things quickly; in fact, we never used it for anything, even just internet searches, as it was far far too pokey. Turns out that it was simply a workstation-level PC that had had a 'Server' label stuck on it as it was put in service, which was then overlooked as other stores were upgraded. The new PC is zippy, far faster and now makes it possible to serve 2 people at once in-branch - finally. It bodes well for when business picks up again.
After work, I spent a few hours a few doors down at the Millstream Merchant's meeting at Serious Coffee. Every month a group of us get together to plot and scheme to improve our business revenue, tossing ideas on the table and seeing what we can do to help each other. Tonight's meeting was somewhat subdued, as a lot of us have had quite the busy month, but those of us who started the group back in June were pleased to see quite a few new faces tonight.
Dragon Age: the next big RPG from BioWare, talked about by the folks at MMORPG.com here, even though the multiplayer part is still in development alongside the single-player game. Looks to be another huge hit from the folks who brought us Baldur's Gate... which I never played, come to think of it. I should really download a copy from Good Old Games for a few bucks... but first I need to find a site I can buy the time to play it from!
Sept 23 - You broke what...?
Ack! Today went all wacky in mid-afternoon, as my CSR from the other store put themselves out of commission with a broken hand; so much for their training this week. While I'm not sure they can work with a serious fracture, I'm pretty certain they're going to take 4-6 weeks off to recover properly, which leaves us short-staffed for the area again. At least they'll get some much-needed time off.
Seeing as I worked the morning shift, I had to stay on and close the store as well - the CSR was supposed to close, but obviously wasn't able to with only one functional appendage. That worked out to a little over twelve hours in-branch, which was nice for the O/T but not so good for the endurance, as yesterday ALSO clocked in at 12 hours of solid work-time with the MMA meeting added in. Lucky thing I'd packed some spare soup in the store cupboards for just such an event( not to mention in case of an earthquake )so I wasn't hungry when I finally made it home, but I sacked out soon after - quite the day, all in all, along with the usual work crises needing solving.
Here's a looming crisis for you( hi, Brian! ): sodium. I've checked on my own intake levels for years, but never to the extent of lowering it to what the recommended levels are - this article from the Vancouver Sun talks about the problem more in depth, worth a read. Salt - who knew something so precious could be so dangerous?
Sept 24 - Beep... beep... gold!
I managed to sleep in today, for a change, and spent a good hour of the morning on the deck enjoying the weather with a good book. Then it was off to work for the closing shift. Today turned out to be a good day overall, just being busy - which is good for revenue, which keeps me employed. Simple logic there! We've had a run of large cheques the last few weeks, so that's a bright spot indicating that the economy is slowing turning around... but we're not out of the woods yet.
Talk about luck: by now you've probably heard about the man in England who discovered a vast hoard of ancient gold in a farmer's field. Just him and a metal detector; makes you want to run around Europe to see what else may be buried and awaiting your chance discovery. But I wonder: why are we only hearing about this now, when the discovery was made months ago back in July? I wonder sometimes... but gold is pretty popular nowadays, with ads all over TV about digging in your couch for spare gold - like that ever turns up anything save a few pennies and too many stale popcorn kernels.
Maybe you could spend some of your new-found wealth on movie memorabilia... like some props from the Transformers films! Next week, over 100 items from the films are going up for auction, including the 16-foot-tall replica of Bumblebee, which is expected to fetch close to $100K in Canadian dollars - he'd make one helluva lawn ornament!
Sept 25 - Nuke Fridays!
Split shifts stink, but we've no choice today; I both opened and closed the store, with a 3-hour break in the middle that had me cycle home and back again. Which was nice, in that I spent a solid hour outside enjoying the( relative )peace and quiet. I read a good chunk of Malevil, which is slow going... good on the part of the author, who gets paid by the word, and bad for the reader, who has to slog through minute details of fictional post-apocalyptic daily life that could be done without.
Getting home in the late evening, I paused briefly then went back out to put up signs at all the nearby street-corners for tomorrow's yard sale. Yep, the neighbours downstairs were getting rid of a lot of extra material, and since the weekend weather is supposed to be superb I volunteered to help in a few small ways. Which included putting up the signs to direct early-morning( and all-day )yard-sale sniffers to the property from various major nearby roads.
What do sunglasses, the end of the world and martial arts have in common? Yes, The Matrix... but also The Book Of Eli, an upcoming film starring Denzel Washington. Looks to be very Fallout-3-esque, with a lot of great blasted-to-bits scenery as background to some crazy fight scenes. In a similar vein, there's a group of Russians who got together recently for a live-action weekend of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. which is a fairly popular post-apocalyptic RPG. Back to reality, there's a creepy picture gallery of the city of Chernnobyl 20 years after the nuclear disaster of 1989 - stark reminders of how things would look if nukes did fall; anyone seen my sunglasses...?
This disturbed me: word is, the Soviets built( and are still running! )a doomsday device... it's called Perimeter. Scary, scary stuff!!!!
Sept 26 - Yard Sale
Up before seven today to help with the yard sale on the front driveway: the downstairs neighbours had a ton( more than a few tons, actually )of stuff to sell, more than I had thought at brief glance last night. I put out a small selection of my own things in a corner, just for kicks; most of what I have is still worth keeping for future use in a place of my own. And a good thing that I put up signs last night: the local papers had misspelled the street name in the ad, so most of the people that showed up were drive-bys who had spotted the signs; kudos to me. Overall we had over a hundred people browse during the day, I was told, which was a very successful one.
What a gorgeous day for a yard sale too: brilliant sunshine, not a cloud in the sky - it looked great from inside the Colwood branch, which I was at before noon to help out at( seeing as they were short a person now, see the entry for the 23rd above )which was a steady day. I even bought a few pieces of gold, which made a few people happy at what they received back for their baubles.
Saturdays around these parts are a mixed bag for events, including cars burning up the track at the Western Speedway which is in earshot of my backyard. Much akin to the similarly-named Merritville Speedway back in Ontario, it's a rip-roaring night out full of high-octane chills, spills and thrills. Which I have no interest in, not being a NASCAR junkie, though I do like cars; I have fond memories of spending hours at car shows, as well as even more hours designing ultimate fighting vehicles for the too-few Car Wars game sessions I played in high school. Ironic that I cycle most places now...
Sept 27 - Not a day of rest
Today was my 7th day of work, and thankfully the least eventful. I was at our Colwood store on my ownsome( sic. ), which is not so good on a Friday but fine for a Sunday. Especially a lovely, sunny Sunday outside - the usual weather when I work, but nice all the same for a late September date.
Regular readers will recall that I canceled my subscription to High-Def TV channels back in the spring, as I found their content to be... lacking - especially given their cost. Which looks to have spawned a resurgance in antenna sales, as people are discovering they can pull in a few dozen free HD channels from the airwaves - what's old is new again, as they say. Unfortunately my house is in a low-lying area surrounded by hills, so I doubt I'll get more than a handful of channels - but I'm still going to give it a shot in the new year, once I find an HD-capable antenna on sale after the holidays. I'm cheap, so why not?
I'll leave you with a 'fun' little flash game: Pandemic II, which has you trying to destroy the world by creating a plague. Creepy, cartoony fun... and a lot better than some of the games I've seen out lately, like this one - now that's creepy!
A day late for this week's blog... read about why next week!
