Thrones, Timmy's and Tabulation

The word of the week is humdinger - you just don't HEAR that any more!

April 18 - Game Of Thrones

Game of Thrones is premiering this week, and I'm interested enough to pick up the books soon to start reading - if they're heavy on politics though, I'm not going to bother as it'd remind me too much of soaps. Which I detest. The opening sequence for the series looks incredible( watch it in HD, it's stunning! )so I'm willing to give it a chance, especially as it has Sean Bean in it. Has anyone out there read any of the series? Is it worth pursuing, or no? I have a feeling it's going to be like Robert Jordan's Wheel Of Time series, where a cast of thousands slowly numbs your brain until you just skip to the last page to find out how the whole mess ends...

April 19 -HOW much does a Timmy's owner make???

I've heard the comment "Tim Horton's is a license to print money" more than a few times in my lifetime, but I've never given it much thought even after working for a franchise owner years ago. Now, thanks to a class action lawsuit that's been before the courts for a while now( frozen donuts = bad business )we've been given a look at how MUCH a Tim Horton's franchise owner makes in profit each year. It's eye-popping: the average PROFIT for an owner is over $250,000 a year - that's income, folks, substantially so, even before taxes. I never thought it would be THAT much, akin to what the owner of a car dealership makes in a year I'll bet, though that's likely to be less now that the economy has made cars a less-often purchased item compared to a Double Double at Tim's. Wow, talk about a sure thing!

April 20 -Where to Vacation in 2011?

I posted a Poll to my FBook profile this week, asking what people thought about various options I was considering as to where I'd go for my July 2011 2-week vacation. So far, the most popular seems to be 'Niagara To Visit Friends' but considering less than 10% of the people I asked voted, it's a little underwhelming. I'll check out seat sales at the various airlines, as well as looking at car rental options - no way I'm hot-footing it around for those 2 weeks. I'm also considering spending a day or two driving north to visit friends in Milton and T.O. so that's MUCH easier with 2 weeks instead of one. All in all, Niagara looks to be the winner, as vacationing by myself, even on a beach somewhere, really doesn't appeal to me. I'm already quite alone out here in BC, so why would I want to go somewhere ELSE to be alone?

April 21 -We're Second Best!

The good weather is rolling in here, with temperatures this coming weekend expected to climb into the low teens – about time! Combined with sunshine, it looks like Spring has finally woken up and smelled the pollen around here. I forgot to mention last week that Victoria BC was ranked #2 on MoneySense.ca's Canada's Best Places To Live List 2011 – sweet! We're tops when it comes to low pollution, job market( that helps my searches! )and being able to walk / bike to work year-round. Seems that my research data on the same subjects back in 2007 before my move is still holding solid; now I have to figure out how to land a solid job alternate and find a place near enough that I can forgo the need for a vehicle. Transit still irks me, in that it's a crowded moving room full of strangers, but I'd rather take a bus in Canada than in downtown LA or London, England. Same goes for biking in either city too!

April 22 - My iPhone finally dies

My iPhone decided to suicide last night; I set it to erase all settings to help it back to usability, but it didn't come back from that and merely mocked me with the Apple logo until the battery died. I have to say I've been LESS than impressed with the long-term usability of my used iPhone 3G: apps and media vanished without warning over and over, the phone reception was spotty in a LOT of places, the battery life was inconsistent and in general I used it only to read books and do the occasional Facebook update. I'll hand it over to a friend to see if he can't restore it to its proper glory, but at this point I'm looking to go back to my trusty gold LG8700 Shine phone and wait until I see the 3G-enabled Motorola Xoom appear for offer with Telus later in the year. I can wait, as I have a credit with them I can apply, as the Motorola Xoom looks to be the tablet I'll be buying... once it shows up. So long, iPhone; you won't be missed, despite your useful and entertaining little apps. I will say you were better than the LG IQ-related stupidity I went through back in Dec 2010, but only by a few degrees. Meh.

April 23 - Caffeine Isn't Your Friend

New Sleep-Well Rule: no more caffeine after 6pm for me.. I was up well after 2am, with admittedly a lot on my mind, but I'm usually too exhausted to let that keep me up. I was aware that caffeine stays in your body for a long time, but I had no idea that 8 hours later I'd still be sleepless – it doesn't seem to have the same effect on me in the morning. At least I could sleep in today, as I worked in the afternoon... which I was dropped off several hours early for( again )and spent the time semi-productively at the McDonald's on Island Highway. I arrived just in time for the hordes of screaming-kid-dragging parents to be leaving, which was nice; things were basically quiet once 1pm hit, and I headed to work with a clear head under the brilliantly-shining sun. It also helped that I'd packed a pair of headphones and dialed into Last.fm though the free WiFi @ McD's, though I have yet to get my PogoPlug home media device to accept easy media streaming to my ancient Ubuntu laptop; just one more tech challenge for me.

April 24 -I feel like writing... a little.

The good weather seems to have lifted my mood a fair deal( SAD, anyone? )more so than for many months. I've re-read some of my older stories, as ideas for new ones percolated in my brain; I've scribbled down ideas here and there for the last year, but not done more than outline a very few of them. Now that my stress levels are lowering and energy levels rising, it's time to commit more than a skeleton of words to the page. I'll leave you with another product that takes memories of my youth and twists them into something both scary AND smelly: Official D&D Perfumes. 'nuff said.

Yep, that's enough for this week - I wish my real life would hurry up and get here!