Comments, Cable and Cars

As you may guess, it's not easy coming up with New Stuff every week... kind of like when your favourite TV show comes up with a 'Clip Episode' that reuses a ton of stuff from the past season to make up for the fact that they've either run out of money or ideas, or both. So far in this blog, neither seems likely... heck, I'd LOVE to be paid for writing this. Some Ideas have already been forwarded... any more?


Feb 2nd - The Day After Groundhogs

I like Groundhog Day, both the event and the film starring Bill Murray. There's just something about the film that speaks to me, about an imperfect guy who gets the chance( once he recognizes it )to become the person he's always wanted to be, through simple trial and error. Though there are no consequences to his actions, as he repeats his day over and over, he doesn't turn to violence but instead turns outward to help others, as well as inward to better himself. A lovely thought, and too rare... this site gets into some great detail about the messages of the film. Though I wonder if Bill Murray's other film with groundhog cousins in it may illustrate that most folk don't know there's a difference between the little furballs.

Each year around this time, I try to re-watch the film, but this year it will have to wait until later in the week - just too busy and too tired with the move. There's always something to unpack, move around or put on a list to purchase when its discovered that we're out or simply don't have it, like phone cords or the like.

This has to do with the whole darkness / winter thing that people go through every year: Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD for short. Unless you're a Gremlin, bright lights usually help keep folk from feeling down. I'm lucky in that my workplace faces towards the west, so I get light all day long and even a peek at sunset through the masses of windows that enclose my corner-built branch. Sunshine! Not the film either, which I just bought this week - who wouldn't want to get within hugging distance of a star?

Feb 3rd - Russian Empire

The Death Star - who wouldn't want to have the keys to this Ultimate Weapon, floating in orbit just waiting to blast a planet or two into dust? Uninhabited planets, of course! I've always wondered just how much it would cost to construct. Now, someone has come up with a dollar figure, based on the materials contained in the moon-sized battlestation - can you guess how many times the current U.S. National Debt the figure is?

On a related note: Darth Vader helmets... as re-imagined by top artists, on display at the Warhol Museum.

The Russians know a thing or two about breakfast, as well as how to build really big things - maybe someone should have suggested a Death Star to them in the 70's ? The gigantic construction in the photos is known as the Woodpecker, an early-warning radar system developed during the Cold War that could see missiles over the horizon. It got its name from the tapping sound it made on radio sets all over the world at certain frequencies. Thankfully, it was shut down and abandoned decades ago... leaving the giant metal skeletons to rust slowly in obscurity.

Feb 4th - Car Confidence

My parents had been looking at perhaps getting a new vehicle this week, a Mazda 5, as my mother has been having trouble getting out of our Mazda 3 lately, due to several medical reasons. They had been dealing with Pacific Mazda in Victoria, the same ones that they had purchased their current car from. Sadly, even given the current economic climate, the salesfolk at Pacific did not proceed with my parent's best interests in mind... which I deduced from what they had told me up to this point. So, I went in today in the morning to sit in on their appointment, and was rather annoyed with the indifference and vagueness of the sales pitch - it was as though the staff expected to spout off a few numbers and then watch as my parents signed on the dotted line, dazzled by the opportunity they were being given to throw their money at the dealer in large wads.

Needless to say, the sale didn't happen, and after work today I went into detail with my parents about how a lot of the car sales industry works, relating it to the techniques and information presented by Pacific to them this past week. My favourite was the 'Flow Chart', a vague collection of scribbled half-numbers in circles joined by lines criss-crossing the page - supposedly outlining the value of their trade-in, package options and 'discounts' being offered. My parents won't be going back to Pacific except for service, as they are the only Mazda dealer for fifty km in any direction, which likely explains their 'Only Game In Town' attitude they took with their sales pitch. I know it's a game, and that the rules are subtle... but neither side should ever assume the other are ignorant of ANY common sense.

Feb 5th - The Cable Returns.. or re-runs?

Moving on towards the end of the week... I will be SO glad to get a day off work, at home...

The cable guy was at out new place this week, and gave us good news: the signal into the house is plenty strong enough to support all the TV's in the place, plus a few more if needed. This can be an issue depending on the quality of the signal in your neighbourhood, as happened to us in Fonthill, where an extra line( at no charge )had to be run in to ensure a stable signal for all the outlets in use. This bodes well for fast internet speeds, assuming things stay working, which they haven't so far.

Now that I have cable again, I find myself reluctant to watch TV - odd, but I consider it mostly a waste of my time now. Considering I am out of the house for at least ten hours a day now, my time is becoming even more valuable, especially as work is getting busier with tax season and the ton of daily details that being a manager entails.

Still, there are a few shows I want to catch up on: BSG, which is in its final season & final episodes right now, plus The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which continues to surprise me with the quality of its writing as well as production values. The Terminator franchise, which is releasing Terminator: Salvation this summer, has often made me wonder about the intricacies of time travel. Someone has helpfully looked into how Skynet could make better use of its resources in killing John Connor than sending back machines shotgun-style to be mangled in various desperately-contrived ways. So, assuming that Skynet is listening, we're all doomed....

Feb 6th - Smiling... ack! Zombies!

The evening piled on, with a nice ending: my last customer of the night, a regular, gushed at how she loved coming to my branch because I was so efficient, friendly and professional. When I joked she should tell others, she surprised me by grabbing a comment card and stating firmly that she would send it in Monday with glowing comments. Needless to say, after having had several other customers( bad apples all )send in not-so-great cards, this response left me with a happy grin until I left for the night.

Apparently other people wanted to leave people with a smile a few weeks ago in Texas: hackers altered a few road signs to produce amusing messages. Go have a look. Makes me long for the days when things were hacked for the fun and the challenge, and not in order to make money, cause disruptions for millions of people or to plain old cause damage.

Feb 7th - Books I've never read

An interesting place to visit is Privacyworld.com. They have a ton of useful info about keeping YOUR info safe, as well as educating yourself. Though I am very well-versed on keeping my info private( it took someone ten years recently to find me again! )there were things I didn't know there. Worth a look!

Tonight, I looked through my collection for that rare bird: a book I've never read yet owned forever. The result? The Hero and The Crown by Robin McKinley, which won the Newberry Award in 1985. Apparently I've had the book since around that time but never got around to reading it, which amazes me - looking over my collection, I can recount at a glance when I've last read almost every one of them. Still, there are still a few that I haven't read, or finished reading.

Makes me wonder where the nearest library is around here...

Feb 8th - Day off? Work 8 hrs at home!

I managed to sleep in today, and it felt great. Though this house is not perched in a sunny spot, it has two huge skylights in the roof, one of which is in the main bathroom. Sunshine splashing, soon enough....

After spending all day in my living room, I had all both the couches and the chair cleared off, and all the electronics working properly. The TV is hooked up, the DVD players work, and the surround system sounds great. After long experience organizing masses of wires, I have it down to a fine, if slow, art - now that it's all in place, I can use any piece of media and have it displayed on the TV, with the option of the sound going to the surround or just headphones. Once I have the rest of the room to rights, I'll be able to enjoy the room for any form of entertainment... even relaxing, by gosh!

The only thing that gave me trouble today was configuring the wireless internet connections. This is always a tricky business, and for the entire week I have had trouble with things interfering with each other. There are a total of four routers now sitting on top of my shelves, and after today they're finally programmed to play nice with each other - one for the downstairs tenant, one for my parents, a faster 'N' version for me, and a non-wireless one for my VOIP Vonage phone. Not for the faint of heart, that.

Good news about my own cable modem too: it's not dead, just not programmed for the new place. Whew!

Looking around as I write this blog late Sunday night, I have to say I am pleased with my setup, moreso than at my May St address. Here, I have room for my entire 3-pc couch set, surrounded by shelves at a good distance without crowding, plus a nice see-through wood burning fireplace. The room is sunken, and paneled on the ceiling with wood, with large windows at the front. It is a calm, relaxing room and I am looking forward to spending a lot of quality 'me time' in it... I don't get enough of that.


Comments, we had comments last week - yay! Well, one was more of a personals ad / sticky note, but the others were good - Trevor, I will email you, and Anonymous: The story proceeds... slowly. Thanks for asking!

DVD's, Dinner and Decisions

I'd ask Thought Police to actually read the blog entire, before commenting, as it only shows them to be foolish by leaving comments that ignore the blog's content.. but why bother? I'll bet they just skim, and don't actually read - keywording at work, folks. Hey, my first intro-comment link! Whoop.


Dec 15 - Scams

Low energy...

Turns out the phone calls I have been getting are from an 'Imperial Cruise Lines' ... important to note the name, as they are NOT the same company as 'Imperial Cruise LINE' - the distinction will be important later. Seems that this less-than-reputable bunch( nee scammers )use autodialers to call numbers and so determine the times of day when people there pick up. They then pass that info on to call center staff to peruse, based on data from their 'automated survey' call, which basically tells them if the mark is likely to have money to spend( nee be bilked of )on a vacation cruise. Apparently lots of people have been getting these types of calls, which often result in large sums vanishing from one's credit cards, if you are foolish enough to give such info away. Given that these scammers are taking full advantage of internet-based IP phones, which are difficult to trace and have no CallerID, it makes the National Do Not Call Lists rather impotent. Law enforcement is slow to follow up on complaints, which then means that the numbers that DO show up are already out of service a few weeks later. Reading some of the information that former employees talk about is eye-opening as well, and makes me wonder HOW this kind of company can stay in business legally? The world is not what it once was.

I watched Transformers in the evening, which was in the now-defunct HD-DVD format. Say what you will, I stick by my guns that it IS the better format - Blu-Ray has far fewer features, but had the backing of all the major studios, likely because it was cheaper to produce. Ah well. Transformers looked amazing on the HDTV, as the detail of the robots was mind-boggling. Too bad the video game stank... they should take a page from Good Old Games, which is a company dedicated to bringing the best of the older video games into today's age, making them run under Vista and the like. Oddworld!!

Dec 16 - Concepts and Movies

With the expression "Work is good for what ails ya" in mind, I set out today, my second day off, to make myself feel a little better... by organizing my place. I went through all my books, papers and sundry stuff to comb out all that which was no longer relevant to my life, which was surprisingly little. The papers took the longest, as old bills and other whatnot had to be examined to see if they were still worth keeping - the papers, not the bills. I progressed steadily through the day, cleaning, dusting, moving, tossing and the rest, until by dinnertime I was satisfied - my place finally looked like I wanted it to. All the extra was tossed or tucked away, I'd found a few things I thought lost, and in general I liked the neatness... the old saw of 'settled surroundings, settled mind' was definitely at work here.

I Stumbled across a website that is a mecca for people posting concept art; one fellow actually had his art go from concept to full-sized spaceship, built for a theme park in Germany, in only three months! Sing the praises!

Speaking of concepts, while waiting for Watchmen to come out, I came across a trailer for X-Men: Origins - Wolverine, with Hugh Jackman reprising his successful clawful role as the badass mutant. Nice that Wolvey keeps gaining popularity as the years go by.

I finished off the evening watching Iron Man, which was a great comic book movie. All the elements were there: cool superhero suit, lots of action, and even a redheaded Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, assistant to Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark. I've always liked Iron Man, though regrettably I've not kept any of the few issues I had from years ago. Apparently the newer issues have incredible writing in them, so I'll have to try and scout eBay for a few issues in the new year. Cool suit, did I mention that?

Dec 17 - What is that white stuff?

It snowed all day today, which in itself is nothing I am not used to from decades in Niagara. However, there is not even a tenth as snow removal or salting equipment here in Victoria, due to the much milder temperatures. Which means that when it keeps on snowing with low temperatures, things literally pile up faster than can be dealt with.

Tonight was a case in point. After I finished work in a flurry( hah! )of activity, I raced to the nearby bus stop, thinking I was a few minutes early for the scheduled bus. So I waited confidently, snugly tucked into my winter gear. And waited. And waited. After a half-hour, I was rather put out, moreso as I had spotted a bus in the far distance pulled over with its hazard lights on. After trying to call the bus schedule number futilely, it being busy constantly, I trekked over to the bus in the distance. The driver told me that due to the slippery roads, ALL transit buses had been told to wait until the roads were re-evaluated and the salters/sanders had had a chance to get around the main routes. So he took my ticket, gave me a transfer slip and I waited with a few others another ten minutes until we were finally given the go-ahead to proceed. I then waited with a large crowd downtown in the main foyer to Chapters, keeping warm for another hour almost until the bus I needed straggled in. Annoyingly, the driver told everyone that by that point, the ride was free due to the delay... but I had already paid on the other bus. Ah well, at least it got me most of the way home... albeit two hours late. Which was about the average wait for a cab that night, due to the virtual shutdown of transit. Thanks, snowfall.

Dec 18 - Bacon and Wall-E

A little late now to order in time for Christmas, but as a companion to my earlier blog entry I present: bacon ornaments! That's right... now you can hang your fave food on your tree for the holidays! And, in case you didn't already know about it, ILoveBacon.com is up and running for all your bacon needs!

Speaking of greasy, I made it home from work in the usual half hour, as the buses were running on time today, for a wonder. Seems it just takes them a day to get used to snowfall, which according to the locals has not been this heavy since the Blizzard of 1996, the year when Victoria held the record for all of Canada for the most snow accumulation in 24 hours... ouch. Not as much snow as the White Death, when Niagara and Western New York State got buried in snow in 1977. The sledding was good that year. Shades of The Day After Tomorrow, really, but without the bad acting. Or the wolves.

I headed over to my neighbour's place, in the next apartment on the same floor, for dinner and a movie. This was the first movie night we'd had since springtime earlier in the year, so I was excited... my social calendar here in Victoria has had few outings of this type at all, to my regret. We watched Wall-E, the Pixar CG-animated movie... it was fantastic! The graphics, as expected, were top-notch, and I was impressed that the producers did not try to go for a 'true-human' look as Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within did( mostly successfully )back in 2001. What impressed me the most though was the personality that the animators managed to imbue into the robotic characters, mainly done without dialogue. Watching their antics on the screen, I was reminded of the silent pictures of the early film era, where gesture, expression and body language had to convey the totality of expression in the absence of words. Charlie Chaplin, we miss you.

Dec 19 - Fuzzy Friday

Listening to the radio at work always helps the day go faster, or at least not suck as much. The station I have tuned in here, 100.3 'The Q' seems tailor-made to my tastes: lots of oldies, classic rock and the odd indie song tossed in, without any rap, dance, techno, metal or other related... stuff. I am almost always pleased with their selections, even the esoteric ones I've never heard of - rare is the time when I flick off the radio in the back when I can't stand the choice of song. So that's a good thing here.

After a long day, I was feeling rather woozy - dizzy even, at points. I've been taking digestive enzymes on my doctor's recommendation, to see if they might assist with bringing my plumbing back to normal... but no results as yet. So, I packed my bags and spent the night visiting my parents, who put me up in their spare room. I slept very well, and our cat Tristan was delighted to see me for such a long stretch, so much so that he barely left my side all evening. I didn't eat much, as usual, apart from a slice of pizza and a buttered bun - I have been using liquid meal replacements at work for the last few weeks, as they avoid the nausea that has inevitably followed eating solid food. That cannot continue forever though, as I need to find the reason for this problem and not just continue to treat the symptoms.

Dec 20 - Decision

I woke up to the toot of a train horn somewhat after seven AM, just one of the lovely things that living in Esquimalt forces you to get used to. At least the stench of diesel over the entire Inner Harbour is much less on the weekend, as there are fewer commuter flights leaving. Also, this is the off-season for tour buses, who show up three or four at a time during the summer to loudly proclaim over the views.

But, enough about that. I was still feeling burned out, as I have been for the last many weeks, due to whatever is causing my illness. Part of the symptoms is that I do not feel hunger, even after not eating for 12 hours or longer - I just don't. So I have to remind myself to eat, and watch that I don't eat too much at once... I've taken to having four or five smaller meals a day, as that seems to work around the nausea I get an hour after a regular-sized meal. Taking digestive enzymes helps, and I am still able to function fairly normally, despite a few dizzy or nauseous episodes a day, which only happen after a meal... for the most part. So that's only three times a day, really, when you think about it. Every day.

Which is why today I had to make a choice: to continue on my own, or make plans for my near future.

Plans, you say? Yes. I have to consider that I will not quickly figure out what is going on internally with my plumbing, nor that my doctor will find a simple solution - he hasn't yet, and I am going to be getting a few more specialist's opinions in the new year. So with that in mind, I have decided to hedge my bets in case I am unable to continue working or functioning on my own in the coming year.

Discussing things with my parents for the last few months, we have co-ordinated our searches for an alternate residence, and today we went to see a house in Langford that hit all the checkboxes. It is about a fifteen minute drive from Victoria, on a good day, is located on a lake with a view, close to many amenities and has plenty of room for everyone and our 'stuff' too.

We loved it, and immediately sent off an email to the owner that we would take it.

Which meant that I also contacted my own landlord and gave notice today, which broke my heart... because I love my current apartment. I've rhapsodized about it many times in my blog, so let me just say this: as I look around while composing today's entry, I am again struck by how comfortable and perfectly suited this place is to me, in so many ways: the size, the location, the neighbours, the way the sun lights the whole place all day long... that I can write in peace here, with my independence and all that I need at hand. It is everything I wanted in a place of my own.

Now I have to leave it, by my own choice albeit forced by circumstance. Which means that I will be moved out of this location by Feb 1st, 2009. Bitter is that taste, to have found a place that is all that you wanted and be forced to leave it by your body's betrayal. Bitter, bitter a taste indeed.

Dec 21 - Sunday Slush

The splash effect of slush on semi-cleared roads should not be understated, especially where temperatures have not solidly frozen roadside accumulations. I watched several people eat flying slush as cars zoomed past on the somewhat cleared main roads today, waiting for the bus on Fairfield Rd. I passed quite a few folks out on their Sunday morning to clear their walks; there must have been easily a dozen people flailing away with shovels, not to mention those who had already cleared their walks and the sidewalks in front of their homes too. I am sure that many an enterprising youngster will make a good few dollars today with no more than a sturdy shovel and a penchant for ringing doorbells all day.

Which made for a slow day at work. I've brought in a humidifier, as the air here hovers around 35%( or less )humidity, which is uncomfortable to work in. Cracked skin on one's hands and the occasional nosebleed are things I try to avoid adding to my list of winter enjoyments, so the added moisture, although not substantial, helps to keep these minor scourges at bay during my work day. Not to mention that the lobby is at least 15-20 degrees cooler than the heavy-glass-insulated teller area, so whenever the heating system comes on, cold air is displaced from the lobby and blasts into the teller zone... can you say, "My hands are frozen?" I knew that you could. Now thaw 'em out and count change.

I watched the DVD extras for Iron Man after getting home from work - amazingly easy on a Sunday night, as the bus goes directly from my branch to the stop outside my front door. Maybe a hundred steps total from work to home... and I won't be doing that ever again, in little more than a month. Though I will likely still be working every Sunday... I'm tempted to get religion, just for the day off.

Ahem. DVD extras... there are a LOT of them with Iron Man, all top-notch and informative. Must be the hundreds of geeks involved in the creative process... they know what sorts of things they would like to see on these things. Great gobs of CGI graphics, diagrams and interviews - when I was finished watching I felt like I had been on the crew for most of the production. I'll have to pick this one up.


And on to the Comments... if any. Will there be spiders?