Never eat apples on Halloween.

We had a pretty amazing display of stupidity at work this morning.  It would seem that last night the forklift normally used by the yard cleanup guys was down with a flat tire, so they used our warehouse machine until the tire was repaired this morning.  Well once in a while the cleanup guys have need for a utility knife, and they keep it on the forklift.  Except it would seem that these guys don't use a knife like the rest of us, they just keep a full length razor blade duct taped to the front post of the cage.  And sometime during the night they decided to adapt the same ridiculous setup to our machine.  So one of my warehouse guys is using our forklift this morning to haul boxes over to the packaging area, and goes to hop off for whatever reason, grabs the front post and... why, what's this?  A 6 inch razor blade under his hand.  So lots of tissue paper, blood and a ride to the hospital for several stitches later... you get the picture.  And the best part?  After I pull the blade off our forklift, I go over to where the cleanup forklift is parked and remove a much older and rusty blade from the same spot.  Can people really be this stupid?  We keep a handful of perfectly good brand new utility knives in stock at all times, why would they prefer the danger of wielding a wide open razor blade?  And why would they leave it taped in a place where people typically grab onto while climbing in and out of the forklift?  It blows my mind when I think about some of the craziness that happens amongst the production population at my work.  This reminds me of a story I heard a while ago, about how our plant washrooms used to employ gas station style hand towels, you know, the ones that have a long roll of cloth in them that feeds back up in the back, and you pull on it to get a fresh patch for drying your hands on?  At any rate, I guess there was a day when the stall ran out of toilet paper, and the last person to discover this wasn't willing to pull his pants up long enough to go find some... you can imagine what happened next.  And just how quickly those towels got replaced with paper dispensers.

German software.

We are the SAP.  Prepare to be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. You will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.

It's finally come down to it, I've been asked to work towards finalizing some master data within our business management software.  Just a few small tunings and tweakings that would allow me to eventually hand over control of the standard week-to-week shop supply PO creation to the system.  Granted, these are basic POs that use reorder point based planning... once the quantity of material X reaches a certain level, the system generates a requisition.  This material's rounding value, source vendor and delivery lead times have all been preprogrammed into the requisition creation by myself, so there's not too much there that needs human interaction anymore.  Turning it over to the system wouldn't be a big deal, except that since most of the work is already done for me, it only takes me less than a minute to cut a PO for most of these items.  So is my saving 5 minutes a day really worth running the risk of not catching a problem if (and when) one happens?  I'll always have full manual control over our key raw materials, the stuff we need to keep production up... so big deal if the system messes up and we run out of duct tape for 36 hours, right?  I can't help but be worried.

Yes Miss Daisy...

Christine and I ran into town to do some errands this morning.  We're on our way home, cruising along up the hill past the foothills subdivisions when, well, here's an excerpt:

Christine:  "What speed are we traveling at?"

Me: *pause to look at the speedo*  "A hundred."

Christine: "I hate you."

Me: "Ninety...eighty.........seventy...(?)"

Christine: "Better." 

Lock me up and throw away the key.

I've been pirating music, software, movies and TV shows for some time now... but I guess my most recent download was high profile enough that I got someone's attention.  This is priceless.  Check out the email that I received from my ISP below:


Notice Of Copyright Complaint - THOMSON, JEFF - jefft5@telus.net
We are writing to inform you that TELUS has received a complaint that alleges that your TELUS Internet Service account has been involved in copyright infringement. This complaint was traced back to your account based on the IP address used at the time of this activity.
Please note that TELUS has not provided any of your personal account information to the complainant. It is TELUS' policy to disclose such information to a complainant only if ordered to do so by a court of law, which has not happened to date.
We do, however, want you to be aware that this complaint was received by us and offer you the following information that may be of help to you:
If you are unaware of this type of activity originating from your account, you may wish to inquire with others who have access to your account.
If you are using a dial-up account, change the account password to ensure that only authorized users have access to it.
You may also want to check your system for viruses, which may explain why this sort of activity is originating from your account.
If you are not aware of our Acceptable Use Policy, which strictly prohibits use of our Service to infringe the copyrights of others, you may review at http://www.mytelus.com/internet/nv/aup.do. Please be aware that violation of this policy could result in disconnection of your Service.
Below is an excerpt from the complaint that we received regarding your account. We include it in this notice in an effort to help you identify the activity that is in question.
Sincerely,
Alex
Internet Abuse Team
National Internet Services Support
TELUS Communications
e-mail: abuse@telus.com http://www.mytelus.com/internet/nv/aup.do
* Please include the original email in any reply.

~~~
Excerpt from complaint:
---
Title: Spiderman 2
Infringement Source: BitTorrent
Initial Infringement Timestamp: 11 Jul 2004 08:49:19 GMT
Recent Infringment Timestamp: 11 Jul 2004 08:49:19 GMT
Infringer Username:
Infringing Filename: Spiderman 2 VideoCD kvcd (Hockney)
Infringing Filesize: 835226969
Infringing URL: 207.81.35.18:6882/Spiderman 2 VideoCD kvcd (Hockney) Notice ID: 424678

Comments

It would seem that the comment system is finally working correctly now.  I'm not sure exactly why there was a comment link appearing under my title, but I managed to get rid of it.

Captain's Log, Stardate: 6354.6

Read some cool stuff on StarTrek.com last night... Looks like season 4 of Enterprise is going to be shot entirely with brand new, high-end digital cameras, which puts it on par with Lucas and Episode III.  That should make for some pretty cool cinematography.  It makes me want to forget about the new car and go get an nice widescreen HDTV. 

Back to being a one-car household.

I took the Suzuki down to ICBC today, pulled the plates off and handed over the keys, in exchange for a cheque for $3011.  Even though it wasn't even my car, it was kinda sad.  I stood in the parking lot afterwards, waiting for Chris to come and give me a lift home, and found myself staring through the fence into the salvage yard.  So many vehicles, some obviously destroyed, others not so bad.  It made me wonder if the previous owners of the "not so bad" ones had considered keeping the vehicles and trying to fix them, in order to try and hold on to the old girl... or if they had simply taken the cheque and walked away, without any remorse.  I can't help but feel attached to my vehicle, after a while it becomes your friend.  Christine didn't have too much trouble parting with the Sidekick, she'd only had it two years and hates driving.  But it's the opposite with my truck and I, we've been a lot of places together over the last 9 years, on trips down long highways and deep into the bush, up mountains, across rivers, and through city gridlock.  Sure I'm gonna buy a new car soon, but that's no reason to get rid of the old girl.  She's only got 300, 000 kms on the odometer, and plenty more where that came from.  *sniff*  Okay, I'm gonna go now before I get all weepy.  If anybody needs me, I'll be out in the driveway, havin a beer with my baby.

Hail to the king baby, the king of suds.

I've just opened my Visa statement for the last month...  Normally I just do a quick scan through the thing to make sure there's no weird charges, (like $700 for jet-ski rentals and martinis in Boca Raton Florida), then I toss the paper and pay it online.  But something struck me this time around, and that was the repeated occurrence of lines that read "BC Liquor #135 Vernon BC".  And in between those lines were ones that said "Squires Four Beer & Wine Vernon BC".  These are the two stores that I frequent, so the charges were obviously legitt, but Had I really spent that much on beer this month?  The calculator tells me $418.56, and that doesn't include the full flat of Belgian tall cans that I bought on Sunday.
Maybe it's time to stop blaming my desk job for my steadily expanding midsection...

Maybe it's time to get off the sauce.    :(

Vernon grew for a little while, but now it's shrinking again.

So I'm driving along by BX Falls yesterday, when this little white car burns outta the driveway in front of me.  I follow it along the windy road up to the stop sign, where, naturally, both the car and I stop.  But then the driver's side door opens and this dude jumps out, looks back at me, and makes this weird "gunslinger" gesture.  My first thought is "who's this bald jackass?", then he walks towards me and my second thought is "oh.... its Scotty Coughlin.....".  Turns out that Spencer's suspicions about the Coughlin Construction sign on the tree were correct, his parents have built a house up in my neighborhood, and Scott's moved back home for a while with the rugrats.

How about that.

The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia

Good news for Jeff today...  Turns out that ICBC has deemed me to be only 25% liable in the accident.  After more than a decade of dealings with the "Big I", and always taking it dry and then smiling and walking away, I've finally come out on top.  Christine mentioned the fact that there's a Dodge Ramcharger driver out there somewhere that's none too happy right now, but to that I have two things to say:  1. Learn to use your f*cking turn signal.  2. It's finally someone else's turn to donate a few paychecks to the continued financial gain of the illustrious ICBC.
 
WOOT!

The search for the new car...

In case any of you didn't already know, I managed to write off Christine's Suzuki last weekend.  I'm still waiting for ICBC to get back to me, but at this point it looks like 50/50 liability.  I say the guy didn't have his turn signal on, he says he did, the only witness is Christine and she has a "financial interest" in the vehicle, you know the story.  So anyway, the Suzuki has enough front suspension damage that ICBC has declared it a loss.  Christine's kinda OK with it because she was getting annoyed with insurance and gas expenses, so ICBC "buying" it from her isn't the worst thing that could happen.  So now the plan goes as follows:  I park my truck and use the opportunity to do some work to it, (paint/body, and maybe some new cylinder heads... hell, maybe I'll just stroke it out to a 383 and do it right from the ground up.)  Then I buy a little 4-banger.  Something that's small enough to save me a couple hundred dollars a month in fuel, and compact enough that Christine can drive it without needing a pillow to see over the hood.  Only thing is, there's no way I'm gonna settle for a P.O.S. little '90s compact.  If I have to own a 4 cylinder it's gonna be a GM, and it's gonna have some go juice.  This narrows the field to either the Cavalier Z24 or the Sunfire GT Coupe, which make 150 and 155 HP respectively.  Adequate power for a 2500 lb vehicle.  Problem is, they're not all that common in the Okanagan, sure there's lots down at the coast, but who wants to drive all the way to Surrey for dealer pricing on a $6000 car?  So if you know anybody who's selling, pass me their number.   :)

Work

I like it when I sit down at my desk in the morning with the "get shit done" mindset already in place.  It's so nice to be able to put my head down and clean out that pile that's been adding up in the inbox for the last 3 days.  No interruptions, no stupid questions, no salesmen bothering me, no flying sardines, just plain old Monday morning productivity.  Now that that's taken care of, I can sit back, browse through my materials planning, maybe answer a few emails, blab on my new blog...

Video game addicts

Now I'm just looking for something to do while my 30-day trial of EverQuest updates.  Did I say EverQuest?  I meant EverCrack.  I admit, over the last few days I've found myself playing this game quite regularly... But during my travels through it's massive fantasy worlds, I've encountered people who truly live vicariously through their online avatar.  It's creepy, but strangely understandable.  I don't know what will happen once my limited free trial expires, perhaps I'll get the shakes and find myself down at EB, pawning my watch for just one more month of the good shit.  Let's see what happens. 

*hic*

Well... here it is, the first post.
I'm not sure what to say at this point, since I decided to go ahead and make a blog before I thought about what to put in the silly thing.  Maybe something interesting will happen tomorrow.  My beer calls.