Heatwave, Home Depot and Health

A week spent mostly off my feet; bliss! Well, mostly.

June 1 - New Month, New Aches

I was feeling sore and tired today, but less so than on the weekend. The weather is simply lovely, though it looks to be a HOT one this week... which just goes to show: be careful what you wish for! I had hoped for some good weather this week, but all seven days? Unprecedented... so I should have suspected something was up - boy, was I right!

Things on my mind this week included... wills. Which, I might guess, most of you reading this do not have. Hence the need to read what Neil Gaiman had to say on the subject, relating to writers( of course )but important nonetheless. Since I don't happen to have a house, car or secret Swiss Bank Accounts, it's not as important for me as for those with more to disperse - but then, I don't want all my hard-earned swag to end up at an estate garage sale. That'd make my spirit restless, y'know?

Today, BioWare released a trailer for their upcoming massively multiplayer online game Star Wars: The Old Republic. It is unbelievable: watching it, one forgets it is a game trailer, as it is as spectacular as any movie trailer I've seen in many a year. Can't wait for the game to come out; I've not the time now to devote to an MMO like World of Warcraft, but for T.O.R. I might just find a few hours a week.

June 2 - Niagara News!!!

Today was spent mostly outside on the deck, coming in for 'cooling breaks' every few hours. I relaxed: snoozing, reading and typing on the laptop, as the mood took me and the energy levels allowed. I mainly kept to a semi-reclined position, using anything BUT my abdominal muscles, as I mentioned last week. The weather outside was gorgeous, but I had to be mindful not to overheat - sitting under the umbrella in a lounger was the best idea, as the cul-de-sac area back under the skylight by the kitchen window was like an oven when the sun moved to shine in it, despite the occasional breeze.

Some GREAT news today as well: Martin emailed me my flight ticket info! Here's the dates:

July 31st - Arriving Toronto at Terminal 1 @ 2:10pm EST

August 8th - Departs Toronto from Terminal 1 @ 4:30pm EST

... which means yes, I will be coming back to Niagara this summer, thanks to the generosity and support of my friends. Again, I feel so lucky to have such good people in my life - all the better that I can visit them again this year!

Vampires are alive and well in today's media, believe it or not. A recent news article revealed that none other than Avril Lavigne is taking steps to hide her bloodsucking nature from the world. As trivial as it may be, I think it's actually true - I've seen her Canon camera commercial a few times since, and if you look closely when she smiles, there are no incisors visible! Coincidence? Not in Hollywood! And while I actually find prominent incisors attractive( depending on the person )they are only so if they are natural - wannabe goth vamps: you have been warned.

June 3 - Home Depot

In the early afternoon I had to lie down for a few hours, as I suddenly became weak and shaky. I don't think my energy levels were quite up to dealing with the heat outside, which even in the shade was over 30 degrees C. Inside, the house is bearably warm... except of course, in my front room. Maybe I should have built myself one of these, which is a water-powered air conditioner for the budget-conscious. Love those kinds of ideas: low cost AND effective( I even own the same model of fan! ). Though it does waste water, but the Comments section there does describe a closed-loop system possibility, which appeals to me all the more.

Home depot was visited several times today, for various things including a 20' ladder necessary for cleaning windows and reaching various parts of the house - backsplits are like that. And the stepladder that came with the place was far too short to do more than reach the eaves in the front. Why a ladder today though? See tomorrow's entry - today was simply purchasing the hardware in the evening for the upcoming job. I was exhausted and grumpy by the time I got back home again... there wasn't room in the car for both myself AND the new ladder, thanks to the silly design of the Mazda 3's interior. You'd think the split-folding seats would favour a straight pass-through, allowing one side to remain up and so allow the possibility of passenger in the back seat? Nope - the larger folding seat section is behind the driver, not the front passenger - so if you have something like, say, a ladder... then both back seat sections have to fold down to accommodate it. Dumb design - I wrote Mazda a note, but don't expect to hear back.

The local politicians also voted today in favour of moving forward with plans for sewage treatment in the region, voting to go from zero plants to four plants in operation by 2016. I still find it incomprehensible that the capital city of the province has existed so long without any sewage treatment plants whatsoever, just dumping waste into the ocean untreated... I grew up next to a sewage treatment plant in the north end of St. Kitt's, so I knew what it was all about from an early age. I think it prepared me to put up with the crap of later life, in some ways...

June 4 - What the blazes?

In the morning after breakfast I was up on a ladder in the front hall, putting up a curtain to neatly cover over the skylight and so reduce the blazing heat of the sun that we've been getting this week. It will stay up all summer, and hopefully reduce temperatures in the front area of the house( where I spend my time )from oven-like to merely warm. I managed to do it without falling over, though with frequent breaks, a fan aimed up to keep me cool, and sunglasses - it was damn bright up there. Also, I rigged up a screen for the front door to allow it to remain open and increase the airflow through the house. Combined with the skylight curtain, the house was noticeably cooler today, though I still had to retreat to my bedroom for a few hours at the worst parts. A secondary curtain out the back under the deck skylight also cut the blazing sun's fury to manageable levels, creating a decent retreat during the later hours of the afternoon. Still too hot to sleep outside though.

Blade Runner is a film I have always loved( and now own the 5-disc HD-DVD Complete Collector's Edition, which has all 4 official versions of the film plus the rare actual workprint, plus 9 hours of extras. It was on sale too, so that helped add it to my shelf. Nothing compares to seeing Blade Runner in HD with the sound wrapping around you - bliss.

I wonder if in such a future, they would have healthy bacon? No joke - apparently they have special pigs in Spain; have a read.

June 5 - Heat Relief

Today was not as unbearably hot as the last few days have been, thankfully. A nice wind all day from the lake to the north kept the air moving through the house, which was much cooler thanks to yesterday's adjustments. We're also under water-use restrictions here on Vancouver Island, which limits outdoor watering for the summer to just 6 hours a week, total. Not a lot to keep your lawn green, though you are allowed to hand-water as much as you like - no way to I feel up to that yet.

In September, I am really looking forward to seeing Tim Burton's 9 when it comes out... on the 9th. 9/9/9, get it? Today, a preview of one of the villains from the film was released: the Seamstress. Scary, spooky apocalyptic stuff - I can hardly wait!

Boring is bad in my books, and few things are as boring as urban garage doors. Luckily, you can now spice things up: Style Your Garage.com has large stick-on images that turn boring into badass. This one is my favourite - sure stands out from the boring grey alley-doors next to yours in downtown T.O. - they do regular doors and windows, too.

I've been a little frustrated with my laptop of late, but I am still very pleased overall with my purchase - especially as the CPU is upgradable, unlike most laptops. I was also pleased to see it rated here at the top of the mid-level CPU's out there. Which means that if I want to upgrade in about a year's time, the T9800 CPU may eventually drop to an affordable level, and I may add some faster memory too, as it seems to be the weak link of the laptop's performance chain. Never have I been so pleased on a "bang-for-the-buck" purchase of mine, especially as I use it every day for many tasks... even the occasional game or two, go figure.

June 6 - Invasion of Noise

I woke this morning at 6am and couldn't get back to sleep - might have had something to do with some odd dreams I'd had, or maybe the barking dog that kept going for 2 hours.. or the minor earthquake we had. Very neighbourly of people to leave their animals out early, given that everyone around them likely has their windows open so they can hear the precious pet complaining that the sun's been up for hours now yet he hasn't been fed. Another reason for me not to like dogs as pets - like young kids you can't reason with, as they don't speak English or remember things very well from day to day. I'll bet they didn't even know today was the 65th anniversary of D-Day, which one veteran has said that the film The Longest Day captures best, save for the smells and the sheer terror of being there. A world is grateful for their sacrifice.

Work had a nice surprise for me when I walked in the door today: water damage. At Mmart, we are trained to be careful of anything out of the ordinary when we enter or exit our branches - common sense, really. So what was I to think today when I walked into the branch to find carpeting pulled back everywhere, and large fan units blasting air across soaked said same? Luckily, I'm not the panicky sort, and understood what had happened was not part of some weird tunnel-rat burglar group in the night. Though I was miffed that nobody had bothered to TELL me on my first shift back in a week. In any case, it made for an interesting day drying things out, on top of catching up on a week's worth of work. By day's end, I was beat and my stomach hurt from sitting upright for so long in the chair - no couches here. I was glad to get home to relax with a few hours of Civ: Rev. Which I lost ground at and gave up on in favour of sleep.

The Internet is full of memes - great things like "It's a trap!" for which you get 10 Geek Points if you can name both the film AND the character who spoke it.

June 7 - Sunday slipped away

Today sort of sped by - I was feeling tired, so I slept, read and watched some DVD's... no energy for much else.

I had my first multiplayer game of Civ:Rev in a year in the early evening, with my good friend Nigel... who after a slow start took the ball and ran with it right to the endgame. Those of you who may not be familiar with the Civilization series of games, there are several ways to win a game: economic( the most gold ), cultural( the most cultured civ ), military( kill everyone else )or capital

A friend and I worked on a demo trailer for our NWN project, to be used to promote the world once it's released to the public. I was impressed with the demo presentation that my friend had worked up, which was basically a PowerPoint presentation with music and text. Once we're finished I think it will be an impressive addition to our PR portfolio.

Tonight also saw me remove the bandage covers from my sutures, which turned into quite the production. Apparently they use Super Extra-Sticky bandages for these sorts of things, which only begin to be removable after a hot shower and an hour of slow, patient work. Thankfully I had the assistance of my parents, as I was not quite up to staring at my own upside-down belly with a flashlight to get the damned things off. I was infinitely relieve to see most of what I thought was scar-tissue buildup come away with the bandages, though it will be another week before things get back to normal enough to tell if there will be scars. Which I hate.

The rest of the evening was spent working on the blog, while watching Stargate: Atlantis Season 4 commentaries. I just love that every episode of the entire season has a commentary, with some very good insight into the process( which I have mentioned previously, yes ). I also discovered a very talented new actress in the episode entitled "Outcast" by the name of Emma Lahana, who turns out to be from New Zealand. Again I curse the fact that both Stargate TV shows wrapped the same year I moved out here, as I would have loved to try to visit the sets at least once. Ah well - there are plenty of other shows filming in Vancouver of late.


Whew... quite the week, and not quite the vacation I had hoped it would be. I did get the time I needed to recuperate, and I hope that this week will see my energy levels return to normal. Adios!

Singing, Shock and Sweat

I am still working on those pictures. There's literally thousands of them that I am going through, so what I am doing is going through this Blog week by week and picking out images that go with each entry. I wanted to do that in the first place, but it was hellish trying to get images properly attached / hosted when I started this blog. Again, I hope to have it done before my trip to Niagara!

Aug 4 – B.C. Day

After work, I headed home for a quick supper and then cycled down to the Inner Harbour area to catch the festivities. The weather was simply perfect: clear skies and balmy temperatures that did not start to feel the least bit chilly until well after 10pm. Part of BC 150 Years, this article gives a great summary of the event.

When I arrived, the crowds were dense but not heavy, with quite a few people content to sit much further back from the massive stage set up in front of the Parliament Buildings. Hundreds were spread over the vast lawn of the Fairmont Empress Hotel. Famous local son Burton Cummings was playing when I made my way to the corner of Government and Belleville St, which was close enough. The crowds were much heavier just the opposite side of the street, covering the lawn completely. Where I was, I could see the stage as well as the two huge screens on opposite sides. I even had a tall guy to my right, who neatly blocked the blinding rays of the setting sun – perfect, in fact.

Burton Cummings was a blast of energy, singing his heart out along with his band. I was sorry I had not got there sooner, as they left the stage not even a half hour after I arrived.

Sarah McLaughlin was next. I was interested to see her, as I'd been first introduced to her music back in my days working at The Brock Press. My editor at the time, Nick, was a HUGE fan of hers. So much so, that he was on a first-name basis with the staff at her record label – he would call them up weekly to see if there was anything new happening with her, which I found amusing. I should also mention that the last Sarah McLaughlin concert I attended was back at the Molson Amphitheatre, when she first returned from hiatus after having a child( I believe ). That was a great show, but I ended up not enjoying myself after the halfway point. I had gone up to the 'cheap seats' rail that separated the grassy seating fringe from the 'paying customer' seating to take some pictures, with my lowly 3-megapixel Olympus C3000 digital camera( but DAMN could it take good low light pictures! ). Amazingly, there are still reviews online of the camera. I barely got two pictures before security dove on me, lectured me about not 'filming' ( ?? )and took away my camera for the rest of the concert. Needless to say, I was NOT impressed.

But back to the concert. Sarah put on a lovely performance, her songs as always making the crowd smile. I noticed 'Aida' seemed to be the most popular, with a lot of the crowd singing along. It was a mixed lot too, with a lot of families and older folk present; officials put it at around 45,000 people all told. Suffice to say it was a relaxed, happy and well-behaved group of people out to enjoy a perfect summer evening with a free show.

Fiest was on after Sarah, with an intermission by a local singer named Shawn Hlookoff. He was energetic, but you could tell by the absent-minded chatter of the crowd that they were really waiting for Feist. There was a small group at the front who would occasionally chant her name during the setup after Shawn, and the roar that went up when the lights came on( low of course )was almost as big as for Sarah's low-key entrance.

And an interesting entrance it was. Fiest had set up a 'silhouette screen' and started off the show singing with her backlit silhouette on that very screen, a theme that continued throughout the show. I did not know any of the songs, but BOY could you hear her – they must have amped the bass ten times over the other performers, as very asphalt was vibrating enough to rattle the gravel. Loud, I guess, is another way to put it – glad I wasn't any closer. Too bad I had to leave before she got to the one song I did know, the Apple iPod commercial-famous "One, Two, Three, Four…" I really wanted to stay for that, but I was just too tired at that point, so off I went home in the gathering chill – I'd not brought a jacket( again )and forgotten how quickly things cooled down here at night. MUCH different than Niagara, where the hot summer nights can make sleeping a chore.

Aug 5 - Weather to Sleep

I almost got to sleep in today… until the garbage truck came at 7am. Very similar to how the landscaping guys used to show up around 7:30 am at The Prince every Tuesday to start mowing the lawn – great timing when you're tired from the night before. Not that I managed to get much done before work, mind you, but that's not the point.

The weather has done a total reversal during the weekend – it's back to sunny skies and balmy temperatures. Only a few clouds forecast for later in the week, so it's back to chilly mornings, sweaty lunchtimes and cool evenings again. Again, hard to get used to needing to bring a jacket, or wear 'layers' of clothes as the locals put it. Makes sense, but I'm so used to sandals, shorts and a t-shirt for summer weather, day and night. At least the need to shower more than twice a day is alleviated somewhat here due to the lack of humidity. Heck, the glaciers on Mt. Olympus to the south see to natural A/C for the city! No sightings of Zeus or other gods though; they must be laying low in the heat.

Aug 6 – Surprise Work Problems

Well, a shocker today: my co-worker was let go from the company. While I cannot go into why it happened, the reasons were a surprise to everyone. It is especially hard when working at a small branch like ours, when there ARE only the two of us there. It's stunning when someone you work with every day, who you have great respect for their abilities and like as a person, is suddenly gone for reasons that come as a hammerblow to the now-revealed-as-fragile-glass gestalt image you had created of them. In the business I am in, one learns to read people very well… but that still cannot ferret out well-kept secrets, and will never restore the blow that you take to your sense of trust. Damn, it sucks. So now our trainee is back, who ironically has the SAME name as my newly-departed coworker( yes, it was very confusing when they were both there at the same time ). Fortunately, we get along great, and we'll both move along from this incident as best we can… a little wiser, and a lot more conscious of how fragile a thing our jobs can really be.

Aug 7 – Looking for Group

I stumbled across a GREAT webcomic, called Looking for Group. It's based off WoW, but not overtly so. The art style is colourful, the writing is decent… and it has a GREAT character or two in there as well( see if you can tell which one I like ). Reminds me of another great comic I've not had the time to read in many years: Thieves and Kings, whose creator was a friend of a friend from quite long ago. Though why the site is in Australia beats me - last I heard, the creator was in Toronto. Hmmm.

On a related stress note, I've been cutting back on a lot of foods lately. Not buying cookies, chips and other snacks has made a difference in my food cravings, though the balance has not yet swung the other way to the point where fresh fruit and veggies fill the fridge. Yet. The one indulgence I still permit is something I discovered at the local Thrifty's I pass twice a workday: the Kilo Bag of Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Measuring daily stress levels by the numbers of cookies consumed has proven both amusing and tasty, so it's something I will continue for a while. Inexpensive yet delicious, the fresh-baked K.B.C-3 is something to look forward too, trivial though a cookie may be in the grand scheme of things. In terms of stress measurement though, the average day at work is about a two-cookie day in the end, with perhaps a half-cookie thrown in for good behaviour or a witty retort. A full cookie if they actually get said retort.

Aug 8 - Where the heck AM I?

I may have posted this already some time ago, but I like it and feel like sharing it again, as people keep adding to it – what's not to like about something continually updated? The 117 Things to Do in Victoria List is chock-full of Goodness for the South-Vancouver Island dweller to dig into. Speaking of which, a little geography for you folks, to clear up something that often confuses people who aren't familiar with exactly where Victoria is. The city is located on South Vancouver Island, which can be confusing as it's over 100 km SOUTH of the city of Vancouver… which is on the mainland well to the north-northeast. Most of Vancouver Island is reserved as forest parkland, with communities mainly situated on the south-east shores, radiating from Victoria north to Sidney. This website in particular has some great info, including interactive travel guides.

Aug 9 - Rain at last

Saturday mornings without cable – has it comes to this? The foundations of my world have become shaky and cracked… no Spiderman, no Robotech – what am I to to?

Oh, right. Work. That's it. How could I forget? I mean, when you take away the PC games, Xbox360, PS2, TurboGrafx, the DVD collection( movies, TV shows, recorded TV episodes ), the several thousand books, the TV available on the internet and those old Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories… there's practically nothing to do here. *grin*

So aside from writing up a few more articles for Cyberwalker.com, finishing up a few story outlines and digging into a few old stories, there's still a lot to do around here. It actually rained for most of the morning and early afternoon here, which was fine by me as I had a lot of laundry to do. Seemed like the perfect time for it too, as everyone else in the building was apparently out doing their Weekend Thing. As I mentioned earlier in this blog, Victoria is FULL of things to do and it seems that especially during the Summer months, there just aren't enough hours even with the longer days.

Aug 10 - Damn, I'm hot!

My apartment gets rather warm with the PC or the Xbox running for any period of time, but as I have mentioned before, the %##@! smokers out the front of the building manage to pollute the air every couple of hours – it seems even more than that, of late. Kudos for not smoking IN their units, but it pisses me off NO END that I have to run to the window to slam it shut when I sniff the foul stench of their killing clouds drifting my way. Even reversing the flow of air does not help; the prevailing wind blows from the southwest, and going against that means I get no cool air – so I either swelter with little airflow, or I have to do a yo-yo act to constantly close the window, wait, then open it again and see if the air is clear so I can get some cool air again. Damn all smokers and their addictions( present friends and family members excluded ).

I played COD4 for a few hours until 5pm, and as usual it was a varied performance. Since my final game of the day was 0 kills / 18 deaths, I took that as a sign to quit before it got worse… as if that were possible? At least I am managing to keep up with my friends, most games - nothing is worse than being the team anklebiter or headshot dummy.

Amazingly, last week's blog was the first one since March that had no comments posted for it. Seems to support my theory that this is the busiest time of summer, when people are packing all they can into the fading daylight hours of warmth.