Foxes, Fridges and FPS

The word of the week is obviate. Check it if you feel it necessary.

March 21 - Expenditure Looming

Pressure to turn the 'old' car into a 'new' car is mounting quickly, so much so that I think we'll have it before another month is past. I do NOT like being under that sort of timeline when it comes to something that is the second-largest purchase people make on average( first being a home )so that's creating some tension. On the bright side, I've been using sites like CarQuotes.ca and CanadianBlackBook.ca to arm myself with dealer costs and get good advice, on top of what I already know. It's a damn shame that it's still a game when it comes to buying a car, as it's buyer beware - it's shocking how little people prepare on average before going in to sign a car deal or a mortgage. Just hand your money over to the bank in either case with a smile... sheesh.

March 22 - Religion

Here's something that surprised me: a report that says religion may become extinct in nine countries soon.. and Canada's on the list. Now, I grew up Catholic, went to a high school of the same faith and attended church up into my teens... but it never stuck. Blame what you will, but religion has never figured large in my life and I greatly respect those who have found it to be a cornerstone of theirs. Some people are better able to integrate it into their lives, some aren't... at least I haven't put my religious affiliation down as 'Jedi' as more than a few people have been doing in the last decade. Very odd.

March 23 - Foxy Upgrades

FireFox 4: I upgraded today( as did over ten million people, and counting! )as I've used FireFox fairly consistently over the last ten years as my web browser of choice. I spend a fair deal of my internet time on the web, so having a solid and customizable browser really helps make the daily experience more efficient. C|net( who have also been around forever, in a good way )has a great intro to FireFox4, which showcases some of the new features to make browsing better. I have dozens of tabs open at once usually( up to a hundred some weeks )so I can follow along my interests as I zoom along and refer back to sites / articles of note later on. So far, FireFox4 has been more than helpful in keeping things grouped properly, so much so that I've been referring less and less to my saved bookmarks. Which is something, as I have about 5,000 or so that I go through once in a while to see if any sites have vanished - which they do... the 'net is always changing, which is its strength and source of frustration for many browsers.

March 24 - Fridge!

Time for something fun: how about a fridge magnet? Not an ordinary magnet, mind you, but one that turns your fridge from Awfully Boring to Awesome. I actually have an awesome fridge where I am right now; it dispenses ice and filtered water at the push of a button! Except that we took out the ice maker because it made WAY too much noise at night, ALL the time, and took up too much freezer room. The filtered water was nice - for about a month, then the 'change filter' light came on and it stopped working. A lengthy search of the internet found that the cheapest place to buy said specialized filters from charges around $100.00 for two; even eBay doesn't have the things available for much less.

So we've been drinking tap water. Delicious, tested dozens of times a day, and quite cold. So much for the features of the 'high end' fridge ...

March 25 - Nanosuit!

After a non-eventful( thankfully )day at work, I picked up a copy of Crysis2 on the way home and gave it a whirl. For the most part, I liked the game due to its different pacing: you have to think about your actions in terms of the moment - go armour? Go stealth? Back off or attack? You only have limited power from your 'nanosuit' so managing its abilities is crucial... or you get fragged. A lot. Kind of like the other FPS( First Person Shooter )games I've played... the only ones I've kept are Halo2 and BattleField: Bad Company2. So perhaps the'2' in this title means I'll keep it as well? We shall see; I need to get more practice in so I can stop hitting the wrong buttons at the right time - that's worthy of a few screams of anguished frustration and a desire to armour my TV in plexiglass to avoid any controller-hurling fits.

March 26 - On Hammocks

I gave myself this weekend off, to prepare for next week when I'm short a CSR as they're on vacation - which they need, just like the rest of us. It's a lovely day here: sun's out, around 10 degrees C, and no sign of snow anywhere for almost 2 weeks now - s'why I love Victoria! I sat inside at the Bean today and baked myself next to their fireplace; the thing pumps out enough heat to keep my tea HOT just sitting on the stone ledge over a foot away from the gas flames. You want to bet that it won't be on in the summer due to the A/C costs, despite how lovely the flames look. No, today was all about relaxing and recovering my mental equilibrium; I could feel the knots in my back loosen as all I had to think about was what the next relaxing activity I could do was - not including naps. I did experience a moment's twinge when I thought about my old hammock, but I never DID have a quiet enough place to hang it before; it would be perfect here, and I have my folding one now, which isn't quite as cool in the summer as the rope one was:

March 27 - Treasure Island

I spent part of my second day off today attending a local performance of Treasure Island, as one of my co-workers was playing the part of Ben Gunn, the crazed man marooned on Skeleton Island. I was accompanied by someone that I've been growing more interested in as well these last few months, though I wouldn't put today down in any way as a date - I have NO true idea of her level of interest in me at this point. The play was put on by Four Seasons Musical Theatre( have a look for a brief video clip of the show! )which did a bang-up job on the whole production. The music was excellent( live piano! )the costumes were varied, the sets were robust and different enough to convey location and the acting was mostly solid. The exceptions were the young lead of Jim, whose inexperience showed on stage but not to the point of sinking the ship, so to speak. Also, some cast members didn't have the voice to 'punch through' the music or over other cast members, but all in all it was a lively, lovely performance that swept you along for the ride. It reminded me of my grade school years when we have The Carousel Players visit the school a few times a year, whose performances always included the audience - indeed, some shows had ALL of the audience in them! I'm hard-pressed to remember details, but I DO remember lots of colour, lots of laughs and the tiny spark of interest in live theatre it lit that has remained with me to this day, even if I'm not a stage-actor myself.

Another week gone, rolling along towards spring, when I'll soon be able to websurf from the comfort of my balcony. Not the hammock though; that's just silly.

Plans, People and Pain

The word of the week is quotidian. Because it sounds cooler than it is.

March 14 -Taxez

It used to be that I was afraid of tax time, or at least very wary - it's like that for a lot of people, as many don't understand how taxes work. Having dealt with filing taxes with people for six years now at work, I can say that the majority of people have no clue and simply expect large sums of money back with no aforethought or preparation... then get annoyed when they owe $$. I'll leave it for another blog entry to explain the ins and outs of ensuring you are likely to GET a return - there's lots you can do. Myself, I just make sure I pay as little as possible to DO my own taxes... like using Turbotax, formerly QuickTax. I've already filed my own this year for less than twenty bucks, and I didn't pay a cent to figure it all out beforehand - love that website. It's worked for me for five years now, lets me plug in all sorts of numbers and save everything to my PC drive when I'm done. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes to see how their tax numbers work as you enter the info, and see if you can make your return better by playing with your options - for free all the way!

March 15 - Painful Cars

Looks like it's time for a new vehicle... but not for me. Today my mom revealed that she's in a LOT more pain than she's been letting on due to her knee joints, so much so that it's excruciating for her to get in and out of the current Mazda3. Which means we now have to search for a deal on a Mazda5, which she has no trouble with as the seat is much higher-set. Which also means my carefully-laid plans for financial parity are going out the window again for another five years or so, give or take. Makes me want to go buy a nice solid bench-vice and stick my head into it to see how much more pressure I can take before my head implodes. Solve one problem and another is right there waiting to jump you for your wallet. Maybe I should just sell off everything I own and go find a nice mountain to become a hermit on... I'm already halfway there where I'm living now.

March 16 - Prisoners of Gravity

Oh joy! After years of going without, now millions can enjoy Prisoners Of Gravity directly from the source on TV Ontario! Up until now, only a few low-quality episodes of this landmark sci-fi talk show were available on YouTube and pained the eye to watch. Now TVO has put dozens of episodes up on the web on their homepage, all of them in excellent quality that will suck you in and spit you out a happier, wiser person... or at least entertain you. I loved Prisoners Of Gravity when it came out, not only because it used the then-cutting-edge Amiga computer for the graphical touches, but because it had ALL the coolest sci-fi / fantasy authors of the day on there. Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock and Spider Robinson were all recurring guests, as was Robert. J. Sawyer and many others. Go. Watch. Now!

March 17 - Scammy Bracelets

At work, I often deal with fraudsters, scam artists, petty criminals and the results that these scum have on regular people. For every heart-warming story you see about people giving back to the world, there's a dozen( or more )untold ones where people were bilked by others with no moral or conscience. Take, for example, the makers of the Q-Ray 'pain relief' bracelet - a total placebo product that made millions for its creators while doing nothing for the purchasers. Thankfully, the makers of the Q-Ray were taken to court and fined heftily - read through the article and you'll laugh in delight at what the presiding judge had to say about it concerning the effectiveness of the bracelet( hint: it involves aliens! ).

March 18 - Half the day at work

Ack! Another example of why being a manager stinks: one of my CSR's had an allergic reaction to some medication yesterday night, and as they were scheduled to open today... you get the picture. Instead of sleeping in( slightly )after my 2 days off( luxurious! )I rushed into work to open the store( late )and spent a total of 12 hours there with an hour off for lunch( unpaid )and a few sanity breaks interspersed. Mercifully it wasn't an insanely busy day, but I was still beat at the end. It's also a good example of corporate doubletalk: I catch flack for every hour of O/T paid out, but when someone's sick it becomes VERY apparent that we don't have ENOUGH staff to cover. In effect, the company is squeezing all it can by reducing payroll costs to the bare minimum to serve customers, and this has its fallout when things go loopy. In comparison, the Tim Horton's next door has TWENTY people working some days... makes me wonder what their monthly revenues are - I should have paid more attention when I worked there last.

March 19 -  Moons

Tonight was the 'Supermoon' - where the moon was 30,000km closer to the earth at apogee. Many astronomers( but not astrologers )went gaga( not Lady )over this. Me, not so much - I've seen the moon on many a clear cold night through a telescope, and it's pretty... but dead. How much more interesting would it be to have a moon with clouds, or ice, or anything but a stark white face that never changes? I've a fondness for a scifi series by David Weber  that started with a book called Mutineer's Moon, as it postulates that our moon is not really a moon, but a gigantic spaceship trapped in orbit for millennia... and no, it has nothing to do with the Death Star. Grab a copy if you can, it's a very worthy read, or just read the first 24 chapters right at Baen Books online!

March 20 -  Spring... springs.

Today is the first official day of Spring, and for the most part it lived up to it here in Victoria - and I was stuck inside, of course! The sun was out and the clouds were few until very late in the afternoon, so I saw rafts of people moving around outside with their jackets open or just in shirtsleeves; glorious. Many people commented that it 'smelled like Spring' outside, and my brain kicked up a little factoid: Spring smells like it does because of bacteria in the soil - don't believe me? Have a look here and wonder at the, er, wonders of science. Search that same site for answers to all sorts of pithy questions you may have about the world around you, without having to travel to your local science centre; score one for the 'net.

So that's it for another week here in BC - I'm really looking forward to the good weather to get out on my cycle, as well as do some foot exploration hereabouts. Maybe even some trails?