Servers, Salt and Scary Soviets

Ever have one of those weeks? Maybe this wasn't it, but it felt like a close second...!

Sept 21 - Dead Things

Today was a series of frustrating events at work that scotched the whole day’s plan I had, to help train a newer employee from another store – that just didn’t happen. The main disruption was our server, which has been painfully slow since I took over the store in the spring. A simple call to our HelpDesk turned into an all-day odyssey of techs trying to make sense of the mess that is our server – to no avail. By day’s end they had us back& running again( after 4 hours without being able to efficiently serve customers )with an appointment to have the thing totally replaced( finally!!! )tomorrow morning.

Dead-ish: has anyone seen the new movie Zombieland, with Woody Harrelson in it? Although reviewers compare it to the much-loved Shaun of the Dead, I also hear it's got its own flair. I'd love to see a TV series set in a zombie-infested world, and word has it that the comic series The Walking Dead is close to being picked up by AMC for development. Mmm.... brains! No, wait... that was a TV executive! Spit it out!

In the meantime I leave you with: Twisted Disney Princesses - some are zombies, some aren't... but all are brilliantly twisted. Great job by the artist, especially Ariel!

Sept 22 - Serving Coffee and Dragons

A long, long day Part 2... I was @ work an hour early, to let the tech in carrying our new server to be installed. Things thankfully went without a hitch, though we did open five minutes late; big whoop. As I had said for the last 6 months, the old server didn't have what it took to run things quickly; in fact, we never used it for anything, even just internet searches, as it was far far too pokey. Turns out that it was simply a workstation-level PC that had had a 'Server' label stuck on it as it was put in service, which was then overlooked as other stores were upgraded. The new PC is zippy, far faster and now makes it possible to serve 2 people at once in-branch - finally. It bodes well for when business picks up again.

After work, I spent a few hours a few doors down at the Millstream Merchant's meeting at Serious Coffee. Every month a group of us get together to plot and scheme to improve our business revenue, tossing ideas on the table and seeing what we can do to help each other. Tonight's meeting was somewhat subdued, as a lot of us have had quite the busy month, but those of us who started the group back in June were pleased to see quite a few new faces tonight.

Dragon Age: the next big RPG from BioWare, talked about by the folks at MMORPG.com here, even though the multiplayer part is still in development alongside the single-player game. Looks to be another huge hit from the folks who brought us Baldur's Gate... which I never played, come to think of it. I should really download a copy from Good Old Games for a few bucks... but first I need to find a site I can buy the time to play it from!

Sept 23 - You broke what...?

Ack! Today went all wacky in mid-afternoon, as my CSR from the other store put themselves out of commission with a broken hand; so much for their training this week. While I'm not sure they can work with a serious fracture, I'm pretty certain they're going to take 4-6 weeks off to recover properly, which leaves us short-staffed for the area again. At least they'll get some much-needed time off.

Seeing as I worked the morning shift, I had to stay on and close the store as well - the CSR was supposed to close, but obviously wasn't able to with only one functional appendage. That worked out to a little over twelve hours in-branch, which was nice for the O/T but not so good for the endurance, as yesterday ALSO clocked in at 12 hours of solid work-time with the MMA meeting added in. Lucky thing I'd packed some spare soup in the store cupboards for just such an event( not to mention in case of an earthquake )so I wasn't hungry when I finally made it home, but I sacked out soon after - quite the day, all in all, along with the usual work crises needing solving.

Here's a looming crisis for you( hi, Brian! ): sodium. I've checked on my own intake levels for years, but never to the extent of lowering it to what the recommended levels are - this article from the Vancouver Sun talks about the problem more in depth, worth a read. Salt - who knew something so precious could be so dangerous?

Sept 24 - Beep... beep... gold!

I managed to sleep in today, for a change, and spent a good hour of the morning on the deck enjoying the weather with a good book. Then it was off to work for the closing shift. Today turned out to be a good day overall, just being busy - which is good for revenue, which keeps me employed. Simple logic there! We've had a run of large cheques the last few weeks, so that's a bright spot indicating that the economy is slowing turning around... but we're not out of the woods yet.

Talk about luck: by now you've probably heard about the man in England who discovered a vast hoard of ancient gold in a farmer's field. Just him and a metal detector; makes you want to run around Europe to see what else may be buried and awaiting your chance discovery. But I wonder: why are we only hearing about this now, when the discovery was made months ago back in July? I wonder sometimes... but gold is pretty popular nowadays, with ads all over TV about digging in your couch for spare gold - like that ever turns up anything save a few pennies and too many stale popcorn kernels.

Maybe you could spend some of your new-found wealth on movie memorabilia... like some props from the Transformers films! Next week, over 100 items from the films are going up for auction, including the 16-foot-tall replica of Bumblebee, which is expected to fetch close to $100K in Canadian dollars - he'd make one helluva lawn ornament!

Sept 25 - Nuke Fridays!

Split shifts stink, but we've no choice today; I both opened and closed the store, with a 3-hour break in the middle that had me cycle home and back again. Which was nice, in that I spent a solid hour outside enjoying the( relative )peace and quiet. I read a good chunk of Malevil, which is slow going... good on the part of the author, who gets paid by the word, and bad for the reader, who has to slog through minute details of fictional post-apocalyptic daily life that could be done without.

Getting home in the late evening, I paused briefly then went back out to put up signs at all the nearby street-corners for tomorrow's yard sale. Yep, the neighbours downstairs were getting rid of a lot of extra material, and since the weekend weather is supposed to be superb I volunteered to help in a few small ways. Which included putting up the signs to direct early-morning( and all-day )yard-sale sniffers to the property from various major nearby roads.

What do sunglasses, the end of the world and martial arts have in common? Yes, The Matrix... but also The Book Of Eli, an upcoming film starring Denzel Washington. Looks to be very Fallout-3-esque, with a lot of great blasted-to-bits scenery as background to some crazy fight scenes. In a similar vein, there's a group of Russians who got together recently for a live-action weekend of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. which is a fairly popular post-apocalyptic RPG. Back to reality, there's a creepy picture gallery of the city of Chernnobyl 20 years after the nuclear disaster of 1989 - stark reminders of how things would look if nukes did fall; anyone seen my sunglasses...?

This disturbed me: word is, the Soviets built( and are still running! )a doomsday device... it's called Perimeter. Scary, scary stuff!!!!

Sept 26 - Yard Sale

Up before seven today to help with the yard sale on the front driveway: the downstairs neighbours had a ton( more than a few tons, actually )of stuff to sell, more than I had thought at brief glance last night. I put out a small selection of my own things in a corner, just for kicks; most of what I have is still worth keeping for future use in a place of my own. And a good thing that I put up signs last night: the local papers had misspelled the street name in the ad, so most of the people that showed up were drive-bys who had spotted the signs; kudos to me. Overall we had over a hundred people browse during the day, I was told, which was a very successful one.

What a gorgeous day for a yard sale too: brilliant sunshine, not a cloud in the sky - it looked great from inside the Colwood branch, which I was at before noon to help out at( seeing as they were short a person now, see the entry for the 23rd above )which was a steady day. I even bought a few pieces of gold, which made a few people happy at what they received back for their baubles.

Saturdays around these parts are a mixed bag for events, including cars burning up the track at the Western Speedway which is in earshot of my backyard. Much akin to the similarly-named Merritville Speedway back in Ontario, it's a rip-roaring night out full of high-octane chills, spills and thrills. Which I have no interest in, not being a NASCAR junkie, though I do like cars; I have fond memories of spending hours at car shows, as well as even more hours designing ultimate fighting vehicles for the too-few Car Wars game sessions I played in high school. Ironic that I cycle most places now...

Sept 27 - Not a day of rest

Today was my 7th day of work, and thankfully the least eventful. I was at our Colwood store on my ownsome( sic. ), which is not so good on a Friday but fine for a Sunday. Especially a lovely, sunny Sunday outside - the usual weather when I work, but nice all the same for a late September date.

Regular readers will recall that I canceled my subscription to High-Def TV channels back in the spring, as I found their content to be... lacking - especially given their cost. Which looks to have spawned a resurgance in antenna sales, as people are discovering they can pull in a few dozen free HD channels from the airwaves - what's old is new again, as they say. Unfortunately my house is in a low-lying area surrounded by hills, so I doubt I'll get more than a handful of channels - but I'm still going to give it a shot in the new year, once I find an HD-capable antenna on sale after the holidays. I'm cheap, so why not?

I'll leave you with a 'fun' little flash game: Pandemic II, which has you trying to destroy the world by creating a plague. Creepy, cartoony fun... and a lot better than some of the games I've seen out lately, like this one - now that's creepy!

A day late for this week's blog... read about why next week!

Battles, Bueller and Blockbuster

A busy, busy week at work... which is really boring to relate, so I've refrained. Mail in your thanks!

Sept 13 - Mondaze

A part of today was relaxing, another part stressful... the third part was busy, as I clambered carefully up onto to the roof today to clean off a lot of the accumulated crap that had built up in the gutters. Annoying, as it caused water to flow into places not intended, despite the excellent gutter-covers that the place has installed - when those are themselves covered in crap, the water just sluices off the roof willy-nilly. It was surprisingly hot up there with the sun today, leading me again to respect the many roofers who come in to cash their cheques every week at work, burned brown by the sun and wrinkled by the wind. Those shingles were scorching!

Ah, progress... sometimes good, sometimes bad. In the case of the Wheel of Time series, the next book is still being written, but in the meantime a large resource has shut down: WOTmania.com has closed as of Aug. 31st of this year. Thankfully, DragonMount.com has taken over the link and has news that some of the data will be integrated into their site, but for those looking to backtrack all the nooks and crannies of the series, it's a setback. Which means that it's time to re-read the thing again... but not until after Christmas, I think. I'm just too busy with other projects, and it requires a fair commitment of time.

io9.com has been running a great series called Future Metro, which examines cities of the future in all their glory. Lots of good reading there, I mean it: there's at least 2 dozen articles about all the aspects of what it will be like to be living urban in the future... both good and bad, most of them quite solidly scifi.

Sept 14 - Golden Showers

Did I mention that we're now buying gold at MMart? Yep... haul in your old jewelery or whatnot made of real gold, and we'll hand over cash for it - a competitive amount, believe it or not. Today I had tangible proof of that: a guy came in to sell a heavy gold-link bracelet he'd bought in Korea years ago, and after all was said and done he got back nearly $600.0 CAN. Now THAT is a solid bit of change in your pocket... and it also gives me an idea on how I might be able to turn the current market for gold to my advantage, if I can determine how a few other bits might fit into a - puzzle. More on that next week.

This is kind of useful: you can look up just about anyone on the 'net using 123people.com, but I found it more entertaining to look myself up and see how many more people out there shared my name. What they do, where they are, that sort of thing - kind of like tracking down a few clones you didn't know about.

Other things you may not know about: shower heads harbouring germs? Yep, that's just one more thing to worry about... I still remember from when I was a little kid being irrationally worried about spiders in the shower head( no idea why )but now it's apparently true that showers MAY be bad for you. Only if you're not in the greatest of health, mind you, but sometimes I get a little sick of hearing how many things are bad for you these days. Maybe hermits had it right: live simply, live away from civilization, and be happy?

Sept 15 - Games and Books

In the world of videogames, there are quite a lot of tried-and-true formulas... which is good, as most work fairly well, but after a while people tend to yawn and go "Sure, it LOOKS nice, but it's the same ol' shooter/side-scroller/rpg that's been done to death already." Which is why when a game like Scribblenauts comes along, gamers sit up and take notice, because, well... it's fun! Like BrainAge and similar games for the DS, it's the unique style of gameplay that sets Scibblenauts apart: it's text-based action. While that may seem like a misnomer, it sounds like a blast and promises hours of entertainment; if you have a DS, I'd check it out... as for me, I'll have to wait for it to come out for another platform, if that happens. Darn the luck. I'm still waiting for the re-release of Mechwarrior4, which has had a recent bit of news assuring people that it IS coming... can't wait!

Oh, and this is one game I have to get: Gratuitous Space Battles, which "aims to bring the over-the-top explodiness( sic. )back into space games" - how cool is that? Stuff all that hours-long resource-gathering, the tedious buildup and the too-brief battles - this one is all about Big Explosions, as that's where all the fun is, right? I can't wait 'till it's out! Though I still miss Earth & Beyond... thankfully, a Canadian site has kept hope alive.

My bedtime reading this last week has been to dig into the rare book I found at Booksmart in Niagara, the oft-sought( and recently available on Amazon )Malevil. Originally published in 1972, the book is rather a slow-starter, as it often dives into the intricacies of French cultural mores or describing the rather indelicate familial relations of the main characters. Which in themselves are fine, for the author( Robert Merle )plainly has great knowledge of such matters - being French. Still, it is slow going; I am already 243 pages in, while finding the survivors just starting to get about the business of thinking about the necessities of such survival - no Hollywood-style action novel, this one. It is along the lines of what I find fascinating about the post-apocalyptic genre though( akin to the survival-horror zombie genre too ): what would you do if it happened to you?

Sept 16 - No More Songs

Woof, a long day. Hopped onto the bus( at the new terminal 10 minutes walk from my house )running to Victoria at 9am, and arrived a mere 20 minutes later. Plenty of time to grab a coffee and settle in for the manager's meeting, which zoomed along nicely until about 4pm... then it was back to Millstream to work the remainder of the shift. Which was deja-vu all over again, as I got a call whilst on the bus in the AM that the water cooler had leaked AGAIN, so the place was soaked. The cleanup guys had been there already, so I walked into a roaring den of noise as high-flow fans blasted air across the soaked carpets while a fridge-sized dehumidifier pulled gallons of water from the air.

I was saddened to learn today that the lady third of the popular trio Peter, Paul and Mary has passed away due to cancer today. All my life, people usually made one joke or another whenever a Paul or a Mary was around, asking where the 'third person' of the trio was hiding. How sad that now there are only 2 of those 3 singers left.

News today as well about the emergence of the internet as a movie medium: Blockbuster is closing over 1500 stores. Which isn't news to me, as it's probably been ten years since I last rented a movie - seriously. I'd rather buy the movie( on sale of course ) and take the time to enjoy it at my leisure more than a few times. While I'm not the person to talk about buying instead of renting per se in most things, I don't think that there's much of a difference between renting a new movie twice and buying it on sale at a later date. It all depends on when you want to see it( apart from the theater )and in my case, I can usually wait for some time without issue.

Going out to a movie is a nice way to spend the evening... especially if you had someone like Natalie Portman on your arm. Wow, talk about dressed to die for! Though from what I hear, the G.I.Joe movie is NOT one you want to take a date to... or see by yourself. Or rent on DVD. Maybe they should have made it an animated feature? If so, they should have done it in this style - very similar to one of my favourite animated shows, Samurai Jack, which tore down quite a few walls in animation when it came out - brilliant.

Sept 17 - Breaking the Wall

Going out to a movie is a nice way to spend the evening... especially if you had someone like Natalie Portman on your arm. Wow, talk about dressed to die for! Though from what I hear, the G.I.Joe movie is NOT one you want to take a date to... or see by yourself. Or rent on DVD. Maybe they should have made it an animated feature? If so, they should have done it in this style - very similar to one of my favourite animated shows, Samurai Jack, which tore down quite a few walls in animation when it came out - brilliant.

On walls: what the heck? I know I've made a few jokes about the Berlin Wall construction zone in St. Catharines( QEW work cutting the city in half )but get this: 1 in 7 Germans WANT the Berlin Wall BACK. How crazy is that? They'd probably say so in Copenhagen, where the car is NOT king, but the bicycle is: more than half the population rides a bicycle every day. The city has just announced plans to create a network of 'bike highways' where commuters can ride from the suburbs to the city core without crossing paths with cars in dangerous ways. Fantastic - check it out here, another victory for the two-wheeled pedal commuter, of which I'm one.

Everyone likes to think that their works will live on beyond them, that their memory will linger in the minds of those who have known of them or even their work. But what happens when tragedy or disaster strikes, leaving things undone or unsaid to those who matter most to us? I've wondered about this myself, having just begun to fill out a will( all those DVD's have to go somewhere, right? )and made out a few words for everyone who matters in my life. Yet what if I don't have a chance to leave those words in the right location? Thanks to FromBeyond2U.com, this no longer has to worry some folk - but you still have to set those words down in the first place, or they will go unsaid.

Sept 18 - Bill Me, don't Salt Me

Ah, payday at last - that day when you breathe a sigh of relief, pay some( or most, if you're lucky )of your current bills, then grab what money remains on either end and try to stretch it until the next payday. I was surprised to learn from a recent article that close to 3 in 5 Canadians live paycheque to paycheque these days, having little in the way of savings, even RRSP's. That's a lot of people with no safety net, which these days is a stinky way to live... not that most( if not all )of those 3 in 5 people would rather put away money, but living beyond our means seems to be the name of the game in modern society.

Reduction would seem to be in order, as I did( somewhat )when I divested myself of a portion of my poesessions in moving out here. Not enough, mind you, and I'm not living in a one-room basement bachelor pad either - which seems to be the problem, more or less. How can you enjoy a huge home of your own with a massive mortgage( and taxes, and utilities )which is filled with a lot of expensive things that you likely got on credit and are now slowly paying back at ruinous rates? Makes you want to change a few things, including your diet - 1 in 6 people worldwide have hypertension, of which up to 1/3 of those can be related to too much salt in their diet. Yep, that's right: too much time at McDonald's or eating pre-made meals, all loaded with sodium for 'taste and preservation' purposes. Ick.

Bacon Salt is something I have to try though - I mean, it's bacon. And salt. In moderation, it's probably part of some corner of a food group, somewhere, if you squint at it correctly. Plus, they have a great blog entry on how to start a food company for less than 5K - worth the read, as I had no idea of the ins and outs involved in getting a product to market, despite my extensive reading on entrepranuership in the last few years.

Sept 19 - Aaarrrrr, Matey! Thar be monsters in that lake!

It was International Talk Like A Pirate Day today, but I'd forgotten... so I could have spent a good portion of today Talking Pirate to people, which would have been cool. Here's a nice piratical pictoral summary from the fine folks at SuperPunch - I especially like the Pirate Squirrels, very tasteful.

Tasty fish too: a local woman spotted some kind of unusual creature in Cameron Lake, which isn't too far from here on Vancouver Island. Local mystery - I love it!

Unlike work, which was an exercise in futility where one unusual problem after another cropped up needing immediate solutions. I managed to find one each time, but before I knew it closing time had arrived and all the things I had wanted to accomplish today were only half-done. We are redoing all of our office paperwork, reorganizing it to standardize all systems across canada so that every branch has the exact same setup - a great idea, but a ton of work to enable if there's just one person doing it.

Late in the evening, I watched an interesting documentary called 'Gun Nation' about the proliferation of guns in American and its effect on their society. The cuplrit is their Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which enshrines as an unalterable right the ability of any US citizen to bear arms. What they do with those arms is the focus of the documentary, which did a credible job of looking at both the pros and cons of living in a nation with millions of guns in the hands of criminals and honest citizens alike. A good site for further information about the gun control issue in the US is GunCite.com, which has a lot of excellent material and further links.

Sept 20 - Call of TV

A beautiful day, if a bit cold in the morning( heck, that's the fall, who cares? )but it warmed up nicely by the afternoon. I spent most of the hours around lunch gaming online with Dave, Simon and later on Matt, in COD4 - with a few good games and more than a few stinkers by session's end. There was even a Griefer in one of the later games, who delighted in teamkilling people - myself and a few others reported his behaviour, but sadly there's no specific category for rampant teamkilling or just being a jackass. I just don't understand people who delight in making life miserable for others, though perhaps it arises from some twisted need for attention of any kind, even derision and scorn.

There's the usual assortment of new shows premiering this fall on TV, mostly bad, but some good. One of the more unexpected ones is The Cleveland Show, which has the character of the same name being spun off from The Family Guy into his own sitcom - different, and possible interesting. Other series I'm going to try to catch are Flash Forward( based on the novel by fave Robert Sawyer )and the remake of 'V' with those lizardly aliens we love to hate. Even Fringe is starting to grow on me, though I've not caught more than a few episodes.

After a few pleasant hours out on the deck( the sun was brillant on the lake )I finished the evening working on the blog whilst watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off, quite appropriate for today, all in all. The parade scene is one of my faves( Twist and Shout! )as is the scene where Ferris and Cameron are trying to reverse the mileage on the Ferrari...


We broke 2800 hits on the 19th - Tah-rah!

TV, Terror and Terry

A perfect weekend of weather here - close to 30C, no rain and only a little wind. Sweet!

Sept 7 - Labour Day

Some of you( though perhaps not even close to all )may be aware that Labour Day started right here in Canada, way back in 1872 in Toronto. From there it spread across the globe, culminating here in the West with the reduction of the work week from over 60 hours standard to 40 hours here in BC - nice, eh? Something else we can be proud of as Canadians... though the tendency to work MORE these days and take less breaks is still a problem.

Still, I worked today instead of taking the time off - I let my employee have a 4-day weekend instead, as she's been doing VERY well( thanks to some fine training, I might add! )and deserves the break. I didn't anticipate it being busy, and aside from a few hours of steady business when I opened, the day tailed off such that I was able to get a fair deal of paperwork done by closing time.

Some cool stuff from the past: I used to get the occasional Popular Mechanics or Popular Science mags, as they were the best way to see the newest gadgets and tech news in the pre-internet days. Now, via the internet, I've discovered that quite a few back issues of both magazines are available via Google Books - another way the info mega-giant is slowly taking over the world. Or, you could saunter on over to Lifehacker.com, which has a ton of great things you can make, similar to what's over at Instructables.com, but a lot g33kier.

Sept 8 - Sleep Cycling

Science Fiction - there's a lot of it coming this Fall, so much so that you might want a guide to check it all out. Thankfully, someone over at i09.com has made one up, and it's quite comprehensive in that it includes TV, books and other media. I especially like the show Fringe, though I've only seen a few episodes, and the upcoming FlashForward, which was mentioned on the previous io9.com Guide to Fall Television: the premise of FF is that everyone in the world blacks out for 2 mins 17 secs and gets a vision of their personal future - some good, some bad, and none at all of the same time frame( that'd be boring ).

I didn't sleep very well last night - for some reason I just couldn't shut my brain off, and it was churning on about all sorts of things such that I resorted to channel-flipping at 2am just to gloss over things mentally so I could fall asleep. These days, that's a fairly rare thing as I'm usually tired enough at midnight to put down my book and snooze until the alarm in the AM. Even a ten-minute nap usually suffices to recharge me during the day; just close my eyes and I snap awake after a short time, which is a good thing as otherwise I'd snooze away useful hours of time.

Cycling to work is great, given the good weather we're having( still )at the start of the Fall season - being a leisurely 20 minutes from work( less if I decide to arrive in a sweat by biking uphill part of the way )is great, and it's only a 35 minute walk at a good clip. Cycling is my preferred method though, as I can get a good bit of exercise in while not spending too long on the commute and leaving more time for rides around the Langford Lake trail, even to nearby Goldstream Park. I get the occasional odd look though, as I have a white bike, blue rain slicker( on cooler days )and a black backpack with my cell prominent on the strap - from afar I think some people believe I'm a policeman, as I can't come up with any other reason for the odd looks I get. And yes, I've checked my fly: it was up each time. Maybe I should ride one of these?

Sept 9 - The Road to TV Repayment

The upcoming film The Road stars Viggo Mortensen as a father trying to guide his son to safety in a post-apocalyptic world - obviously something I will be checking out. While I didn't manage to see 9 in a theater on opening night tonight( 9/9/9 )I am eagerly awaiting its arrival at my local Langford cinema.

A few more months and I'll have my LG TV( and my Xbox360 )paid off, which will be nice... one less monthly bill coming in, though it's been nice not paying any interest on the combo for almost 2 years now. A good deal that's provided me with many hours of entertainment since that first heady month I arrived in BC, and certainly a heckuva lot easier to move than the old( and much-beloved )27" CRT televisions I left behind. Though I do miss my JVC, which had picture-in-picture and more menu options than I've ever seen on any TV, anywhere - I kept the remote just to remind me. If you are lucky enough to have a large-screen TV of your own, you should ensure it is properly adjusted - it can save you money! While I've spent a good deal of time learning all the secrets of my TV, every model is different and you can find all the info you'll need with some careful web searches.

On the plus side, if you do end up upgrading, make sure you don't just toss your old TV - FreeCycle it. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who would be perfectly happy to have a new(er)TV for free, rather than go without - even 2 years ago, when I was selling things off, people wouldn't pay for those CRT TV's, so I ended up donating them to a few good homes. Ditto for the computers I had: I installed Ubuntu, got them working slick and off they went to good homes... I hope.

Sept 10 - Smoking Networks

Looks like a setback in Croatia for non-smokers, as the government has repealed a ban on smoking in cafes after only 4 months. I'm saddened by this, as it means that the 3 million other residents of the country are at the mercy of the 1 million who choose to poison themselves... and everyone else in the immediate vicinity. Like the guy across the fence whose smoke drifts thickly across with the wind into my bedroom, forcing me to slam the window closed each time or suck in his poison - I'll bet he doesn't care, as I've loudly but politely said "That's blowing with the wind right into my room, thanks." several times. Who knows? Maybe he enjoys it more than he cares about how others suffer from it - maybe that's the reason that smokers keep puffing, playing right into the addictive side of the cancer sticks. I'll never understand - if you haven't heard my donut horror story from working at Timmy's back in the day, ask me sometime.

I fiddled with my home network today, managing at last to wring proper speeds from my laptop by separating my parent's connection to a separate router( their old one, actually ). I got it all working, and the speed increase is dramatic: I can download close to a gigabyte of data in less than 10 minutes which is about a 5-fold increase over the shared connection. No thanks to Gateway though, as their Tech Support guys couldn't solve the speed issue( nor give me any advice on it either )or the previous connection issues with it - I had to solve both problems myself. Ah well - my year's warranty is up tomorrow, so I expect the Warranty Chip( first mentioned here in 1991 )to activate and start counting down to a Major Malfunction soon enough.

So far, no joy in the writing department: after the closure of Cyberwalker.com to new work of mine, the economic downturn has seen none of my articles accepted at the sites I've shopped them around at. I've been perusing places like GetAFreelancer.com to see what's available( a LOT of $1.00-an-aricle jobs! )but so far, zilch on that front. I'm considering again trying to get into voice acting, but my range so far is rather limited - the trend now is for an actor to be able to have a very flexible voice so as to enable multiple parts to be played for one fee. Ouch.

Sept 11 - Remembering

Yes, I have to mention it: eight years ago today, we were all shocked out of our own realities by the vicious attacks on the USA by terrorists. I'm sure most of us can remember what we were doing that day, in some part, as those sorts of world-shaking events tend to etch things in our brains. Myself, I was off for the day, and when I heard the news my first thought was "What the hell is happening?" followed by "Geez, I hope they're not going to attack Niagara Falls for the power plant." Which is odd, as slamming a plane into a hydroelectric dam made of millions of tons of concrete won't do much, nor will splashing it into the raging Falls itself, other than providing thousands of tourists an opportunity to document terrorist stupidity and the horror of helpless hundreds along for the ride. Some felt that the tragedy was an inside job, but I don't hold to that idea.

After thousands died with the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings, what's happened since then to try to learn from the tragedy and save lives in the future? Precious little: talk of skyscraper escape methods has been bandied about blindly, but nothing concrete has been agreed upon or even installed, apart from a few prototype systems. Though one company was making brisk sales right after 9/11 - selling parachutes. In 2006, the City of New York even rejected the idea of 'escape pods' for buildings, without actually coming up with anything better instead.

On a lighter note, someone has discovered a way to fool photo speeding tickets in the US: wear a mask. Apparently close to a hundred speeding tickets have been issued to a monkey-masked speeder in Phoenix AZ, but due to the laws there more than half have been thrown out. I remember when Photo Radar was in use on the QEW, and I loved it - why, you ask? Because it ACTUALLY WORKED - people SLOWED DOWN every time they even thought they saw a GMC van parked on the shoulder of the highway. The difference between that and the AZ laws? The ON photo tickets were charged to the owner of the car, which put the onus on them to ensure their vehicle wasn't being misused. Which makes you wonder how smart the lawmakers in AZ are, to let some guy in a mask make a monkey out of them...

Sept 12 - Single Daleks

Sometimes, one wonders, as a single person, just how other Single Guys are handling it... and what 'it' is, exactly? Unlike Steve Martin's The Lonely Guy, where a lonely writer leads a bleak existence in New York surrounded by millions of women, Single Life these days can be a pretty mixed bag. In my own case, I've been single for well... what decade is it now? Nothing serious has sprouted, despite various dates and the usual - even my move to BC, land of the Leggy Runner and Svelte She-cyclist hasn't proven very fruitful. Some guys would feel pressured at my age to 'be in a relationship' but I feel differently; the recent news that perennial bachelor George Clooney has hooked up with a lovely lady this month, this coming years after he regularly made the Top 10 Bachelors in Hollywood - I'm not sure that's a good thing, really.

Which dovetails nicely into dangerous celebrities of the internet: yes, there are some folks that will drag you into dangerous places if you search for them on the 'net. How so? Well... those scummy Evil People out there who want to( promote their website / hack your PC / amuse themselves / pick a reason )have figured out which celebs have the highest number of search requests, then employ methods to hijack your searches through misspelled names and other means. So it pays to have a good UP-TO-DATE virus checker( I use AVG Free )and malware program installed and running while you surf these days. I also employ a plugin for FireFox( which I'm using less and less in favour of Opera or Chrome )called Web Of Trust, which uses a user-based reporting system that puts a green( good ), yellow( questionable )or red( yes, it's BAD )circle next to EACH search result from a search engine like Google - you can instantly see which sites are harmful and so avoid them. My parents love it.

What about last week, you ask? How could I forget it was International Bacon Day on Sept 5th? Well... I didn't know, actually. But it's on the calendar now - check next year! Oh, and I finally got my talking Dalek working... turns out that the reason I couldn't find the 'talk' button is that it was cleverly disguised as one of the 56 small bump-domes on the lower half of the thing. "You will obey the Daleks or you will be exterminated!" - Dalek and Borg, anyone?

Sept 13 - All About Money?

Everyone has that fantasy( well, one among many anyway )about what they would do if they Won Big Money. Yet for a surprising number if people who HAVE won it big, happiness has not followed - at least not the lasting kind. It's interesting to read about how people's lives have changed thanks to a big lottery win - and everyone's life WILL change if they win, there's no question of that. Me? I'll just start with the massive pancakes I made for breakfast today and go from there, making sure I check out the advice at CanadianBusiness.com from time to time - s'free!

Raising money for good causes is another thing: today is the 29th Annual Terry Fox Run around the globe. Hard to believe that close to 30 years ago, Terry almost made it across the country while cancer ate him away from the inside. Amazing that his legacy lives on in so many people, raising millions for cancer cure research every year. Rick Hanson made it across the country in a wheelchair, following Terry's footsteps( as it were )to raise funds to a cure for spinal cord research.

I spent a good part of today playing COD4 with my pals - though I only really had one good game of the whole day, I had a ton of fun trading quips and tripping claymores... ouch. I took a few breaks of a few hours, sitting out on the deck and enjoying the QUIET: no noisy idiots in the park next door, which astounded me. Usually the good weather( it was 30°C outside in the early afternoon )brings them out in droves, but not today - bliss! In the evening, I was mesmerized by CBC's Passionate Eye presentation '102 Minutes Which Changed the World' which follows the WTC disaster on 9/11 in a minute-by-minute compilation, using rare footage - it felt like I was watching it happen again on TV as events unfolded, which I found very creepy and intensely involving. Especially as it showed quite a bit of amateur videos with the incredibly emotional reactions of ordinary people to extraordinary events - the horror and the agony of those 1.5 hours was palpable, especially the scenes showing people falling from the buildings, waving helplessly from the upper floors, or the thousands of people running in the streets to escape the collapse of the twin towers.

In the eight years since then, has our world changed for the better?


If anyone remembers a colour editorial depicting a firefighter with a 'Superman S' on his back, please send me the image - it's stuck in my head. 'night.

Marvel, Mickey and Muttering

A week ahead of... rain? Clouds? Sun? Who can tell?

Aug 31 - Four Billion for Marvel?

The entertainment news of the day: Marvel Comics is being purchased by Disney! Yes, you heard it right... Wolverine and Daffy Duck are going to be roommates. The news has spawned a legion of crossover ideas, but I think the most exciting of these are not related to the news at all. Instead, recently released dystopian visions of Disney icons make you brain spin in new directions - the Zombie Clockwork Goofy is especially chilling with its trademark smile. The folks over at Topless Robot have thoughtfully compiled a Top 5 Best and Worst of the Marvel/Disney merger, with some valid points.

Ouch... seems I overdid things this weekend playing COD4 for so long yesterday: my underarms are sore in ways I've not experienced since spending time on crutches when I broke my leg at 8 years of age. It's weird, but apparently not unheard of( especially Wii owners ) - trust me to find a way to injure myself doing nothing more strenuous than blasting away online with my friends. Dang... feels like I spent a few hours leaning on the ends of broomsticks, very uncomfortable.

What do do today when you're done your work? Why, check out IamBored.com - they have tons of things to do, and not a one of them work-related! 

Sept 1st - Not a Holiday

Up early today to head to the walk-in clinic... of which I ended up at the third choice, as the 1st was not( as listed online )a clinic but a doctor's practice and the second choice was closed today due to a doctor shortage - go figure. Anyway, after a nicely brief wait at the third place, the doctor told me that the swellings were most likely irritations from keeping my arms at my side all day Sunday - again, just as I had surmised. It was good to get a professional opinion, especially as he said they'd likely go away in a few day's time and had nothing to do with lymph nodes or other health worries - phew!

I've had cats for all my life, so discovering that being scratched by one can cause a disease is news to me - I can't recall how many scratches I've had over the years. But, like the song of the same name, Cat Scratch Fever is a real disease and one that you don't want to get; creepy, eh?

What's even creepier is the commercialization of MMO's: no longer are people safe from exploitation inside the fantasy world of places like World of Warcraft. Teams of spammers are now trying to make a buck within these worlds by trying to entice players to buy virtual goods or property using real cash. Strange or not, this is apparently a big enough problem that detective teams have been formed, closing hundreds of thousands of accounts - this article is rather surprising, and disappointing in that yet another venue has been found to exploit the public while they are trying to relax and have fun.

Sept 2 - 7 days until 9 - Borg?

In one week's time, the movie 9 opens, and I hope it's around long enough for me to find time to see it locally. As a matter of fact, since there's an IMAX theater in Victoria, I hope it makes it big and therefore translates to the IMAX screen - heck, if the recent Star Trek release can do it, why not an even cooler tale about creatures made of string, canvas and buttons?

While I haven't had the chance to talk to Telus yet about the extra charges on my bill, I did find this bit of interesting news courtesy of Pierre about cell phone contracts. I don't have one myself, but apparently Canadian cell phone users now have the right to refuse any changes to their contracts. Which I like, as they charge FAR too much if you decide that things aren't to your liking.

Work today was fairly long, as we switched over some parts of the computer system that runs our TCR machine - not that exciting really, but it means more work for us at the front counter and less for those at Head Office; not a great trade. Fortunately it doesn't seem to be that hard to grasp, so as we get used to it things should become second nature. Just one more thing to remember during what have become some very busy and very complicated days of late.

I also watched what will be the last broadcast of the local TV station, CHEK TV - they are being shut down by the money-losing CanWest owners, and tonight was a long farewell by staff on-screen, in the form of recalling their favourite stories. I really enjoyed watching them talk about all of the wonderful human tales they covered over the years, especially the one about the 86-year-old water skier who lives just down the road; inspiring! I hope that the employees of the CHEK station can make good on their plan to buy the station instead of having it closed, as it would leave quite a gap for local news on the Island.

Sept 3 - Comics and Books

I like comics... especially webcomics. From Angels 2200 to Dr. McNinja, there's a TON of talent out there that now has the 'net available as a distribution medium - you never know what you'll find. I'm still going to be headed down to the local comic shop to collect a few things this fall though, among them the new Farscape comic series, which purports to continue the storyline thanks to the talents of series writer Rourke O'Bannon - sweet! November 1st, baby!

Which neatly brings me to: Neil Gaiman's library! Finally we can see what the inside of a top writer's library looks like - and I cannot imagine any top writer in the world not having a library of some kind at least worthy of the name. I love that even the one chair visible in the room is covered in books; a classic sign of a true book collector.

Tick... tick... tick. No, that's not the sound of a clock in Neil's library, but you're half right. News that men's biological clocks are ticking too is not really news to me, as I've suspected as much for years. Which means that if you're really paranoid about mutations to your man-juice, then you'd better go see these guys - fast. And bring some cash... or you may end up with offspring like this. I wouldn't complain though.

Sept 4 - Lego my Ego!

Today was a busy day at work, which was very gratifying to see as it means that our branch's business is picking up: a sign of better times ahead? I hope so - we did double our projected business today, which was fantastic as there's no calendar reason for people to be jamming themselves into the lobby. I also received a performance review today that was very favorable, so that made me perk up somewhat under the mountains of paperwork that keep ambushing me at my desk.

From work to play: where would a lot of us be today without Lego? Well, aside from the folks employed by LegoLands the world over, that is. For two guys whose fascination with coloured plastic building bricks never really ended, the answer is simple: build some really cool stuff and put it online on their website! The Brothers Brick have a gallery of some amazing things they've built, helped no doubt in a large part by all the specialized bits and parts that Lego has released in the last 20 years, a far cry from the simpler bricks I remember having at my disposal as a kid. They're still with me, though they've not seen the light of day in many years unfortunately... and from what I've seen, the sets have only become more expensive over the years. Especially if you want one of these! Or you could just build an 11-foot long Lego version of the Space Battleship Yamato...

But on the other hand, it seems Mega Blocks got the rights to Halo... two years ago, I was looking at this nice list of toy stores for cube dwellers, whose limited space means they can't spare the space for a decent collection of building bricks, or a 1/6 scale replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Sept 5 - Windy Weekend Weather

Today was a fairly steady day at work, enough so that by the time the afternoon was well on its way to evening, I was feeling rather tuckered. Which was the perfect time for my DM to show up for an audit; she must have heard my eyelids scraping closer to being closed. Thankfully I run a tight ship, and we fairly well flew through the audit in a few hour's time. I was tired enough that when I headed home, I walked my bike up the hill to the halfway point, grateful that the rain had paused and the winds had died down completely - it was howling up to 65 kph here at times but thankfully little in the way of debris or branches were loosened due to the brevity of the gusts.

In the evening I played a little of the Batman: Arkham Asylum demo, and I liked what I saw. It was dark, moody and atmospheric - everything that a Batman game should be. Yet there are always dissenters, as this guy seems to be - is he being critical just to write an article, or does he have some good points? Have a look.

Saturday night: traditionally, it's the evening where you go out and enjoy yourself, free to entertain and imbibe until the beer goggles give the world around you a much more pleasing glow... and fuzzy outline. Along the same lines, there is also The Beer Goggler, which focuses more on curvy outlines attributed to imbibing - any night of the week.

Sept 6 - Feeling Slow, friend?

I spent the earlier part of the day trying to resolve some network issues( insert yawn here )at home. Seems that I didn't notice when I first set things up here, that I hadn't thought out how things would work to get the best speed out of my hardware... oops. So my parent's PC was happily connecting using a slower speed... which meant that my nice super-fast router was slowing itself down to accommodate them - doh! Today I dug out their 'old' router( brand new in mid-2008 )to hook it up and configure things better. Once I get the bugs out, it should mean that they connect to their router at their own pace, while my own hardware should sing along at a faster pace - we'll see how it works this week, after I run some daily tests. Here's hoping... at least the soreness under my arms has gone away, like the doctor said it would.

It rained on and off for most of today, whilst I divided my time between COD4 and writing, as well as a little Halo3 with the downstairs neighbour( he's extremely skill3d, by the way ). It was heartening to hear the rain coming down steadily; although it likely spoiled a few people's long weekend plans, the area around here has been so extremely dry that even people's discarded cigarettes had been worrisome in some rural areas. Soon enough, lawns around here may be green again, instead of the bright, dead brown that they have been all summer long thanks to the heat and water restrictions. Still, Australia's apparently had it worse than anyone this year.

To finish off the blog for the week, here's... the Oracle of Bacon! You can probably figure out how it works.

See the above link for Bacon-related goodness, and good-bye for now!

Lunchables, Looking Back and Letting Go

Huzzah, huzzah...

Aug 24 - Health A-Z

Darn it, I wish I’d remembered the A-Z of Awesomeness about a month ago, when they finally got to the letter Z ... can you guess what they used? Think beards, sunglasses and classic cars – funny, since I was talking about them just this week. Goes to show you that coincidence has good comedic timing, or something.

On the health side of things, I’m back to eating normally, though I’m still not partial to beef or really fatty foods like deep-fried or whatnot. I’m finding my digestion tends to vary from day to day, so I’m really watching my intake of fibre and the like to ensure I’m not ‘skipping’ a few days in a row – William Shatner had the right of it. Plus, I am still not sure what sets off the nausea: it could be lactose solids, gluten, or some other as-yet undiscovered thing... all I know is that some meals are perfectly fine, while others cause discomfort. So I’m writing down exactly what does what, and slowly building an idea of what may be causing problems... it will take time.

Which means I won’t be eating from vending machines in the foreseeable future... but it seems that now you can get almost anything from a vending machine. Especially in Japan, where they’re so numerous that someone has developed vending camouflage to help people avoid being mugged.

Aug 25 - Old Shows and PS2

I spent most of my day off writing things for my NWN project, in between recording episodes of Shadow Raiders from my parent’s DVR to clear some space. Made by the same people who created ReBoot, the show rose above its origins as a selling point for some rather shoddy toys and developed some great characters along with stellar storytelling. Numerous fan sites dot the ‘net, as do even more for ReBoot – I enjoyed watching the episodes again, especially because just like ReBoot, the show is impossible to find on DVD. A rarity these days, as companies will release almost anything on DVD to make a buck. In such cases, I don’t feel bad about searching for Torrents online of the show, since it’s been close to 10 years now and still no sign of a DVD release...

Also worth looking at is my revamped PS2( actually Rene’s, thanks bud! )which thanks to Nigel’s kind donation of a Composite cable connection( and many free games too! )looks just stellar on my big screen – I’ve watched a few more episodes of Alias on it this week, and the detail is super-crisp. I’m still dubious on getting a PS3: I worry that only some versions of the thing are backward-compatible with PS2 games. I have enough consoles stuffed under the TV as it is, without trying to find room for another... plus I just love the PS2, which I have been impressed with ever since my friend Andy P. showed me his then brand-new PS2 way back in the day. Too bad its online multiplayer games are just so hard to set up, as I loved playing Ratchet & Clank with Brian and Mike... ah well, I’ll have to ‘settle’ for the Xbox360 Arcade games. Anyone for a game of Bomberman Live?

How I so love io9.com... they brought me this bit of news! Can’t wait until November... but again, they’re right about letting go of the things, as mentioned last week. Sometimes it’s so hard, when you’ve enjoyed it so much...

Aug 26 - Scotch that TV

After searching in vain today for a Scottish-English translator, I did stumble across this little gem: a Scottish Vernacular Dictionary. Now you can forget years of associating with those of Scottish descent in order to understand the brogue from the more stereotypical fantasy-novel dwarves – simple pop up the SVD and there you go! In case you want to explore the world, including Scotland, from the comfort of your own couch, you can click on GoogleSightseeing.com, which although not associated with the Info Monster does use a lot of said technology in its pages. Worth a look.... unlike a lot of what’s on TV these days. Yet...

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years from TV, is that it’s hard to get info about how shows are made – such tidbits of knowledge are doled out in miserly ways by a show’s producers. Especially since they can pad their DVD releases with such things, though it’s worth noting that the producers of Stargate: Atlantis did a fantastic job of stuffing each season’s disc set with tons of great behind-the-scenes features. But before all that, it was Levar Burton and Reading Rainbow that brought the house down for going on-set with Star Trek: TNG – hard to believe that a kid’s show back in the day did more in less than 20 minutes than any contemporary on-air special of the time. Go have a look at it, and try to forgive the poor-quality VHS tape video.

Along those lines, may I present: 8-bit Trip, which is some retro video-game goodness... done in Lego. Amazing that it only took the creator 2 years to put together! I know I mentioned it last week, but it's too cool to talk about just once.

Aug 27 – Flu and You

Does anyone out there remember Lunchables from Schnieders, which got their start in the early 90’s? I remember trying them a few times and being disgusted by the awful processed meat and dry, crumbly crackers. They tasted as cheap as they were, and kinda put me off buying Schnieders products for a while. Someone has twigged to the new Lunchables that are on the market being a whole lot better than the ones from a decade past, and has posted a rather readable blog here... I wonder though, what’s next for the Lunchables line? Sushi? Or... bacon?

I downloaded Shadow Complex on the Xbox360 today, which is a 3D take on the old side-scrolling platformer games of the 80’s. Everything in the game is 3D, though the paths you can take are predetermined – I like that, as it still allows for a lot of exploration without that “Oops, I just got lost again” feeling that too-large 3D game worlds can engender. Along with the “Geez, this place is TOO big... I’m getting bored running continuously from place to place, why can’t they make things closer together?” feeling, among others. The brief trial I played was very enjoyable, though the cutscenes were... cumbersome, to be kind – believable human emotion from 3D avatars is still something game companies are struggling with, though BioWare seems to lead the pack with games like Mass Effect. Next up is Arkham Asylum, which has been getting rave reviews... not to mention having the voice talents of Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamil as the Joker – both reprising their roles from the animated TV series beloved by millions, myself included.

This week has seen me work a lot, again... we’re short-staffed, and it just seems like it will be that way until well into the new year – there’s just not enough people to go around if anyone gets sick. And since the Cold & Flu Season is almost upon us, we have that to worry about... not to mention the fact that the H1N1 virus is spreading far more rapidly that predicted. The most eye-popping fact from that article: 40% of those who contract Swine Flu are healthy young adults, who die from a viral fever within a week – yikes! So wash your hands, sanitize your countertops and hope that the production of vaccine will eventually catch up to demand... right now, they’re saying five years until 2/3 of the planet is inoculated. Ouch – better read this Special H1N1 Edition of the Ottawa Citizen, its got a ton of useful info you can use to protect yourself and those you care about.

Aug 28 - Top TV

Today was another long day – opened the store, did a lot of paperwork, yadda yadda. I was all set to go & catch the bus into Victoria at 3pm... but when I tried to cash out, I discovered our computer had conveniently lost a transaction to the tune of $800.00 ... so I had to find & fix that before I could leave. Took me 30 mins more, making me miss one bus but I was on the road finally at 4pm, heading to our Cloverdale location to host an ‘open house’ for any Head Office employees to drop in & learn about our new Gold service... and there was but a single person there today. So I got some more practice in, checking on the 6 gold rings that she brought in to test. All told: all were gold, so in the end she received nearly $200.00 for her trouble, plus we discussed some of the more amusing points of branch-level vs Head Office experiences with the company.

The ever-enjoyable io9.com released a great list today: The Top 100 SciFi Shows of All Time. Included on the list are many of my favourites, such as B5, Futurama and Firefly, along with choices like Transformers and Airwolf – even ALF made the list! A corollary to that story is the Top 20 Shows Fox Cancelled before their time ... topped by the live-action Tick, of course. And who could ignore the Top 10 Memorable Monsters from Red Dwarf, which challenged its writers by decreeing from the start that NO aliens would ever make an appearance on the show, to make it more ‘realistic’ for viewers. I have high hopes for this fall’s SciFi offerings, though I just heard that the new ‘V’ series has been put on hold... not, I hope, in order to cast someone to play Elizabeth the Starchild. Seeing as I just picked up the entire 80’s series of ‘V’ on sale from F.Schlock this week, I may have time before the new one comes out to re-watch it... though I may have to get through Season 3 of Alias first. We’ll see; for now, I’m just tickled that someone else has mentioned how cool Space: Above & Beyond was for its day, back in the 90’s...

Aug 29 - Grumpy Sunday

I did some writing, on and off, today – mostly for my game development project for NWN. I was still feeling tired today, and that made me grumpy... which meant that when my COD4 games today stank, I got even grumpier. So I took a break for a while, sat on the back deck and soaked up some end-of-summer weather with the laptop humming away... that helped. It was also nice that the( inevitable )people in the park next door were, for a wonder, quiet and consider – actually enjoying the peace and quiet of nature, go figure!

Not much else to say today – I suppose if my brain wasn’t buzzing with a zillion things, I could have put myself down for a nap to see if that helped. Funny how you can drop off at a moment’s notice when you’re younger( or much older )but the skill seems lost in the middle years. Too many things to worry about, most likely... not like a toddler’s simple needs, and not like an elder’s acceptance that some things just don’t matter as much anymore.

Well, we passed 2700 hits today, and I’m still figuring out how I’m going to convert this blog from weekly to semi-daily( if such a thing exists )... supposedly that will attract more readers, though I’m still fuzzy on the details.

Working, Weaponizers and WoW

This week's been brutally busy for me at work... the only normally scheduled day was Monday. Tuesday, I had my meeting after work with the various plaza merchants, which went very well - the brouchures were a big hit. Wednesday I worked a 1/2 shift in the evening at our Cloverdale store... Friday I worked 12.5 hours between 2 stores, Saturday was an extra shift, Sunday was the same... very, very tiring. Not much going on blogwise.

Aug 17 - Watching Art

Holy artwork, Batman! There's a taste of things a-brewin' over at BrianThomasWoods.com, where his newest 'speed paintings' have a depth of intrigue and style that I am frankly in awe of - they remind of several 'concept art' books from years back that simply oozed style and alluded to Greater Things to come. Bravo, Brian! Check out DeviantArt.com if you've bever been there before either... tons of great images, plus they support CoolIris to browse all their images in 3D!

Which brings us to: watches. I haven't worn a watch in quite a few years, as their function( timekeeping )seems to have been steadily replaced by the ubiquitos cell phone in modern life. Why have a watch, when your cell keeps almost perfect time and you have it with you anyway? I've been waiting( and waiting, and waiting... )for the two to merge, but things seem to be taking their own sweet time, despite efforts by the Chinese to push things along... though they could use some lessons in miniturization( at least they got the waterproofing spot-on ). ChipChick.com( a rather nice place to visit! )has a brief article about the latest cell-watch fusion attempt, though again unlikely to catch on, despite retailers trying to create their own hype - Dick Tracy, where are you?

Aug 18 - Cheap Junk

As someone who loves to fix things on the cheap, using nothing but the semi-cannibalized remnants of other possibly-still-fixable things from around the house, I just love ThereIfixedIt.com. All those creative solutions you sometimes see passing you on the road, or in a friend's backyard, put up on display for the world. Reminds me a little of why I liked Junkyard Wars when it was on TV around the turn of the milennium - building cool things out of scrap is always entertaining...

Yet... does anyone out there have an actual basement workshop? The only person I ever knew with a complete setup is my grandfather, but he was an engineer by trade for 40+ years before retiring so you kind of expect that. The next best would be the Ultimate Guy's Garage, where you could work on the car, boat or your latest home renovation project with equal ease.

Neil Gaiman: one can never have too much of this writer in one's life, and not a word he's written is junk, IMHO. Fortunately, to feed that hunger for the heights of the written word comes an interview with Neil, where he talks about the art of storytelling. Having heard him tell one such story years ago, I can attest to the power this man has with both the written and the spoken word... quite a height to aspire to, but why not aim for the heights, instead of the more crowded middle?

Aug 19 - Cars are Cool Too

ThinkGeek.com has some really neat stuff, along the lines of The Sharper Image from decades past... but far more easily accessed via the web instead of a silly shopping mall - which some people apparently will geek out over too when they open a new one. I particularly like this nifty( but expensive )handheld game emulator, that will run nigh unto every single older game ever produced - even Amiga games! Sometimes I just love tech... too bad it's not free, like this tribute to 8-bit games of yesteryear - done entirely in Lego!! And somehow I think this gadget's time has passed... it's good for a few stares at your local Starbuck's, but be prepared for that Pitying Look if you tell folk how much you paid for it!

Though if you pulled out one of these, it would instantly restore your Cool Factor. You may want to pre-order one... I'm still resisting, somehow.

Much like I'm resisting the urge to scour the 'net for actual watchable episodes of Weaponizers, a 3-part series from the producers of Mythbusters. Oh, the destruction: remote-controlled full-size vehicles set loose on each other with fully-functional weaponry in the middle the the southwestern US desert - check out the video teaser! My dreams of 80's Car Wars fandom brought to live in exploding glory, sans the silly frippery of Hollywood that made 2008's Death Race a bland, empty dry-firing flop - which is too bad, as it had Jason Statham of Transporter fame in it.

Aug 20 - Putting on the Moves

I just realized today that I still haven't seen Transformers2: Revenge of the Fallen, or quite a few other movies of late, come to think of it. Is it normal now to simply say "Oh, I'll wait for the DVD." and not even think about going to a theater? I mean, I am not one to answer, as I loathe sharing the aisles with people who seem to have everything except watching the movie on their mind... which is disappointing, as they're simply wasting their ticket money to annoy other people. So it goes... just looking at the upcoming releases at ComicBookMovie.com doesn't really get me all fired up to get out there to see an opening film, and the new trailer for Avatar has left a lot of people scratching their heads, wondering how the Blue Man Group managed to get so out of control with James Cameron's blessing...

This week, I've been playing COD4 for a little while each night, mainly to blow off some stress after working so much each day. Playing in Hardcore Mode is actually not too bad once you get used to it, and I've found that I'm dying less and playing smarter because of it. Still, there are exceptions, and tonight was one: I had to quit after a few games in a row where people were spawn camping( a hot topic )like crazy, though it wasn't as bad as what happened on the server this PC player played on!

Aug 21 - Cool Stuff Friday

Yow - what a combo! I've just learned the DC( formerly known as Detective Comics )is going to team up Batman and a Golden Age superhero known as the Man of Bronze... Doc Savage! I loved reading those old-school adventure books when I was young: gripping characters having memorable adventures in the far-flung corners of the world. Akin to the Tom Swift series of books, Doc Savage was a self-made superhero, much like Batman in his own origins... hence the perfect idea of teaming the two up to see what happens. I can hardly wait!

From the same era as Doc Savage there's this magazine cover, which somehow managed to survive 45+ years to amuse today's websurfers... with weasels!

Freebie Frustration: tonight I finally got around to installing MS Office... after much internal debate, as I really detest MS but their document format / editor is the prevailing champ on the market. Until now, I've been using Open Office 3.1 for about a year and while it's great... I'm not the only one who can't get the spellchecker to work. You can only cut and paste so many times to a web-based spellchecker like Orangoo before your frontal lobes begin to spasm. Much like what happened when I discovered that Hasbro and Norton have teamed up for a Gi-Joe version of Norton's Antivirus... I kid you not. Another sure sign that our world is warping way, way too far away from Reality Prime... yeesh! At least these figures from the Joe movie are cool - why didn't they get used in the movie instead of speed suits?

Cool Part Deux: Fridays are when I like to catch 2 shows later in the evening, convenient when I am working as I still get home in time to catch them. The first is World's Most Extreme Homes, followed by the Americanized version called Extreme Living. Both shows focus on unique homes the world over, some of which may be in your own backyard - like the Steel House tucked away in downtown Victoria BC! I've yet to actually see it, but I've driven by the block where it's located many times and one of these days I'll have to play tourist and snap some pictures. Some of the homes featured in both shows are not to my taste, but all are unconventional, unique and creative in their design.

Aug 22 - Writing What?

In keeping with that thought, I sat down to write up my blog entry for today... and was greeted by a blank page in ScribeFire from my browser. Noooo!

Also, nobody noticed that last week's blog had no bacon reference in it... the world managed to stagger on without realizing its lack though. So this week, I give you: 100 uses for a strip of bacon - with pictures! How's that for making up, eh?

No complaints about the teaser trailer for the fourth season of The Venture Bros... it looks crazy-good! Seeing as I only have the first two seasons, I will have to go hunting for the next two seasons - they're harder to find on the cheap than you'd think. Crazy goodness though; check it out if you haven't seen the show.

Yeah yeah, complaints at work... we've all had those days, like today when I cycled between the two branches( 20 mins either way )to fix our lovely TCR. While I didn't have a complaint today while at work, I had one afterwards - in a way. The branch had been closed for 1/2 an hour, I was all set to leave... then this guy in a pickup pulls up, trots out and starts pulling at the locked door, as though enough repetitions would unlock the Secret Door Device and let him in. He then stood there for 15 minutes, yelling though the door at me to "Call the boss!" so he could "Get in to cash his cheque." No matter that the hours are posted on the door he's pounding on... the open sign and lights are off, and I'm standing there staring at him with a bicycle helmet on my head. A few short words to the effect of "We're closed, come back tomorrow" later, he finally told me where to go( charming )and drove off... after spending 20 minutes delaying me from leaving while simultaeously entertaining the people but 20 feet away at Tim Horton's. Which is perhaps why we as Canadians like to hang out there: free Saturday Night shows!

Aug 23 - Workin' Sunday Thoughts

An interesting article from io9.com about why we can't let go of things. Which could explain how some fans( of any stripe or media-source )become too obesssed with the things they love best... like people's characters from their MMO such as World of Warcraft which was one of the main focuses of the recent BlizzCon 2009. A recent video about such things has gone viral on YouTube, with over 2 million hits - it's called Do You Want To Date My Avatar? and has a decently catchy tune, plus some decent visuals. Not up to Madonna-esque video standards though, but they are selling their tune already on Amazon.com - talk about cashing in. Good for them!

Today was a busy one at work - I did my usual imitation of a flair bartender for the first few hours, to keep up with the flow of people through the front door. Pretty typical for a sunny Sunday, really: people want to get out & do things ASAP, so they rattle on the door and flood through until it opens. Nothing like a lineup to spur one to move quickly... and at the end of the day, I still balanced to the penny - nice! Tired though; my own branch is not nearly as busy, so today was a reminder of how crazy things can get, especially when you're working solo.

Well, that's better... I recalled most of what I had written, with the added bonus of doing things again better the second time - the joy of editing! I really have fun surfing around during the week, putting ideas down in the entries and linking them around to various things I've discovered of late( and not so late ). Hope you've enjoyed this week's Double Edited Blog!