The word of the week is futz – I’ll get around to a better one next week.
April 5 – Starship Hugo
Great news! StarshipSofa was nominated for a Hugo Award today! Congrats to Tony C. Smith, and kudos to Brian for his amazing cover art for S3 a little while ago... good news all around.
If I still played any pen-and-paper( “PnP” )games, I’d make sure to find a place to put this in the new condo
– it’s one of quite a few old-school PnP gaming products offered by GeekChic.com. When I was still playing about 5 years ago, I came up with the idea of putting a grid inside a clear plastic sheet to allow for creation of maps using dry-erase markers; too bad I didn’t think of it twenty years ago, I could have made a mint in sales and beat GeekChic to the punch! *sigh*
April 6 – Transformers iPad?
All right: the iPad over-hype has got me on edge – it’s all that the tech world has talked about for the last month and even I’m getting sick of it. Gizmodo.com looks like one giant Apple ad for the iPad, but occasionally you see something cool pop to the front , like this. Or even more strangely – this! Bacon!
The upcoming MMO Transformers: War for Cybertron looks to be a visual treat as well as a fast-paced blastfest. I’m not a fan of hyper-paced shooters, as I prefer RPG’s to twitch-based games, but I do love the idea of gaming in the Transfomers universe while on Planet Cybertron. It was one of the few things in the old 1980’s cartoon that I couldn’t get enough of: an entire planet of cybernetic coolness? Sweet.
April 7 – Goin’ 8-bit
Pixels is a fantastic CGI-enhanced video that looks at the invasion of New York( and the world )by 8-bit creatures from 1980’s video games – check it out:
Today was a 13 hour day: I opened the downtown store and then closed the Millstream branch. The downtown was a total zoo, with GST cheques and just crowds of people packing in the door for the entire 8 hours I was there, half of it on my own. I managed to hand things over to my relief at 4pm and scram – I didn’t take the bus. Millstream was a stark relief by comparison, where all I had to worry about was catching up on paperwork and training. It was actually nice to sit down for part of the evening!
April 8 – I can see!
Finally, my new glasses arrived today – I picked them up after work. I held my breath as I tried them on, as the last time I did so the right lens was a total blur. This time: perfection! The prescription is close to my old glasses, but set in a solid, stylish new pair of frames... I couldn’t be happier. I’m also pleased that the new frames are as solid as tank armour, which fits ‘em right in with my old sunglasses frames I wear today I purchased in FL ten years ago. They’re still the best frames I’ve ever owned: solid as a rock after all this time.
The old 80’s sci-fi film Outland was on television tonight, and I enjoyed it in between bouts of doing more work-related things on my one evening free before the move next week. The film stars Sean Connery in his first major role since he left the James Bond films, and put him back on a rising career path culminating in his Oscar win for The Untouchables six years later in 1987. Again, I haven’t been out for a movie in ages( not since last year’s Star Trek, come to think of it )so movies like How To Train Your Dragon as well as upcoming titles like The Last Airbender and Tron Legacy are more likely to end up on my DVD shelf than have me see them in the cinema.
April 9 – New and Old
We did the walkthrough inspection of the new condo this morning, making a checklist of all the things that were damaged by the previous occupants. The place was in basically good shape, though it looks like the last folks loved putting up as many shelves and pictures as they could find wall space for – lots of PolyFilla work to do. The place was warm and sunny even without the heat on, which bodes wells for our Hydro bills next winter. We measured seven ways to Sunday too, using the numbers to later create a floor map that let us see if everything would fit the way we thought it would: good news, it all does! Not a lot of in-condo storage( hardly any! )though, so there will be some organizing trips to the storage locker at the far end of the parking garage to get things settled once we’re moved. And the view is both tranquil and reminiscent of a resort, as it overlooks part of the golf course:
On occasion I pop over to TodayInHistory.com to see what notable things took place in the past on this date. However, today was an easy one: on April 9th 1917, Canadian troops began their assault on Vimy Ridge and so began the formation of Canada as a country. As we lost our last living Canadian WWI veteran John Babcock only a few months ago, this year’s ceremonies are especially poignant to ensure future generations remember the gallant sacrifices that we made by Canadians who came before.
April 10 – Dang Busy!
While I’ve been packing( and tossing )things for the, I’ve been keeping some advice from a recent study in mind: the less time spent handling items, the more objective you can be about deciding if you’re going to keep them or not. According to the study, people tend to get irrationally attached to objects the more they handle them, so the best way to make a toss / keep decision is to look at something briefly enough to decide if it’s actually worth hanging onto because you’re going to use it again in the neat future – not in ten years time and especially not if it can be replaced fairly easily and / or cheaply. Another great site for this sort of advice is TheUnclutterer.com – check it out, some good tips there too.
Work today was all right, even though I was downtown and that increased the usual percentage of idiots. A memorable one was the big guy who wanted to make a complaint to the manager about how he didn’t like how our reloadable card was set up( yet had not bothered to read the Terms of Use to educate himself on said details ). When I stated that I WAS a manager, he stuttered and said “No, I want to talk to the manager here.” I replied that she was on vacation, and that I’d be happy to explain things... but he snarled and left, obviously irked that his “Go over the counter drone’s head” tactic had backfired. The next guy in line watched him leave, then turned to me with a grin and said “What an a-hole!” to which I merely smiled as a reply and happily served the rest of the patiently waiting people.
April 11 – NOT a day of rest and GOOD news!
Some great news before noon this morning: my very good friend Rene announced he is engaged! I’m terrifically happy for him and his new beau Tonia, and I’ll do everything I can to be able to make it back to Niagara for their wedding next year. Right now I’ve no plans to visit in 2010, but who knows? A lottery win can change a lot of things... maybe I would get myself one of these to travel the world in.
Not much to say about what I did today save this: I packed boxes and put them in the car, then drove them to their destinations a dozen times over the course of ten hours or so. Most of them are going into a storage unit nearby that we’re renting until we figure out exactly what will fit once we have all the furniture and bookshelves in place there. A fair bit of the rest will be put down in our storage locker, to be whittled down as time permits – thank goodness we’re not an outdoorsy family, as I can’t imagine how we’d store that kind of gear. By day’s end I was beat, no surprise there – my parents also prepped the place for painting tomorrow, as the previous tenants left a LOT of marks and plugs in the wall, on top of being rather grubby-handed.
I’m still rather annoyed about being pic- pocketed on the bus home last week, but there’s little I can do about it save wish that the next person the thief decides to target turns out to be a judo expert who’s having a bad day AND whose wife just left him. Can you say “Wow, he left the bus flying!” ... which would be nice. I’m glad I’m moving in 5 days, as I still have a slight worry that the thief knows where I live.
