Bling Bling

This guy cracks me up.
Who wants to bet that there's a '74 Caddy Eldorado taking up two spaces in the beach parking lot?

Meat

The other day it occurred to me that something was missing from my typical food purchasing experiences here in victoria, and it was the butcher shop. In Vernon there was a German butcher that I would stop at on my way home form work. I'd usually get sausages and something weird to gross out Christine, like cow's tongue pate'.... the shit that just isn't the same when it's pulled from a cooler bin at Safeway. So yesterday I checked the yellow pages for butcher shops, and found one that was 10 minutes from my school. Went there today at lunchtime and discovered that it was a Scottish butcher shop. It was frickin sweet. There were pictures of highland cattle on the wall, the condiments on the shelves all had some form of plaid on their labels, and the whole store just smelled awesome... like fresh haggis. I bought bratwurst and smoked pork hocks from a cheery little woman with a thick Scotch accent. I'm cooking up the brats tonight, with beer and potatoes. Tomorrow I'll boil the smoked pork hock in a soup with lots of big veggies.
*drool*

My baby..

...won an "anti-Nike" contest from Adbusters Magazine.

Check it out: Blackspot Shoes

Meh.... Friday

Went all week without drinking.. even though there was beer in the fridge. Yeah, well I'm proud of myself.
Shutup.

I trick-or-treated an innkeeper, he decided to trick me.... turned me into a mini Diablo. I'd probably be scarier if I was more than 3 feet tall.
It's a small world in the Blizzard universe.


Even when your busy killing swarms of giant lizards, it's important to stop and enjoy the occasional sunset.

I don't update this shit nearly enough anymore

A few weeks back my mom called and told me that she was worried, concerning my recent posts. If you scroll down a few posts, you'll notice that there were 2 or 3 in a row that were the result of drunken ramblings... and they gave credit where credit was due.
Tonight I'm not gonna say anything about alcohol or controlled substances... instead, let's roll the cartoon.

Happy Hallow's End!


The seasonal burning of the Wickerman, every night at 20:00, outside Undercity. Ever seen that movie? No? Go rent it, it's frickin trippy.


Ran a raid with some of the guildies... Here's the UD side of Strathholme. Everything's in a perpetual state of crap.


Takin on a boss in Strath.... here's the view from the *almost* front lines. Hey, I'm a mage, I need to stay at the back and deal out the dps...

I'm cheap

Most post-secondary institutions are surrounded by pay parking lots, and mine's no exception. It just really chaps my ass that after the school takes their big tuition cheque, we're still expected to fork out two bucks a day to have our cars there. When I was attending this school a few years ago for upgrading and miscellaneous classes, those lots were patrolled by someone on the local payroll. I quickly discovered that simply parking in a lower area, with the nose of the truck up against the bushes, let me get away with not buying one of the little tickets that sit on the dashboard to be viewed from the front of the vehicle. From time to time I did get caught, but a $10 fine every couple weeks was far cheaper than daily handfuls of quarters.
I tried the same routine this year, but the parking management has since been turned over to the same company that takes care of all the really expensive lots downtown. There's a dude in a uniform with a marked pickup that comes through and scours the place at least 3 times a week. There have been three times in the last month that I skipped the ticket, and wound up with a fine on two of those occasions. Bastards.
I considered taking the bus to and from school... but not only do I hate the frickin peasant wagon, but I'm not on a direct route and would have to transfer and crap in both directions.
My prayers were answered just a few days ago. I was on a lunchtime walk along one of the biking trails outside of the school property, when I happened upon a public park. It had baseball diamonds and dog walking paths and... a parking lot. A free parking lot. Following the road out took me through a small subdivision and onto the main route that I normally drive to get to school.
I've been parking there for a week now, and the added bonus of the 10 minute walks don't hurt either. The other morning I saw a monstrous snail crossing the path, the little wet trail he was leaving was a dotted line that marked his path like a cartoon. I need to start carrying my camera with me.

Here's a screenshot. I had the privilege of joining a fifteen person raid group for a run through Upper Blackrock Spire the other night. We killed The Beast on the way up. He was one angry pooch.

Lets try this again

If you've ever been too drunk to post on your blog..... you might be an idiot.
I attempted this last night, but using a painfully slow connection to upload picture files that kept disappearing when I tried to publish just made for a lot of swearing and falling-out-of-chair on my part.
I got nothin on this Jackass though: MOVIE LINK

I've got the day off from school today, something called a "reading day". Reminds me of the ol Pro-D days from elementary school. Sweet thing is that the only reading the prof had for us was to study for a drafting/layout test that's way out on next Thursday. I can do layout in my sleep. Eh? Get it? Layout, sleep?
Bah, you don't know funny.

Gonna go catch up on the latest goings-on in the world of Azeroth now. I got my mage up to the level cap a couple weeks ago, and If I spend a little time with the paladin he'll be there soon enough too. I'm gonna be the first kid on my block with two level 60 characters... and as Ken pointed out a little while back, the dedication over several months that's required to get just one up to 60 is usually enough to make the girlfriend pack her bags. My baby must really love me.

Here's a screenshot for the week. I like my new hat.

Friday again

It's been really hard to find time for posting on the blog lately... not only am I stuck with a mediocre "Shaw Light" internet connection, but I no longer get paid to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours a day. I have to do this on my own time at home now.

Drinkin beer, beer is good, long live beer. Celine Dion is a fuckin moron.

On a lighter note....

Friends shouldn't let idiots drive nice trucks: MOVIE

Friday

Friday's here, drinkin beer. Hungry now, wanna eat cow.
There's something about firing back a couple/few barley pops on a Friday afternoon that makes me feel warm and fuzzy. I'm happy as hell. School's good, Victoria's good. If I still smoked I'd be lighting up right now.

Despite my feeelings of generalized happy, there are a few things about the Okanagan that I'm gonna miss. Like my brother, Spencer, and the people at work that were cool. I will NOT miss the Okanagan summer, waaay too bloody hot.

Anyways, Craig just showed up with lots of beer...... gotta go.

Victoria

I’m here now.
All told, the move was fairly painless. The only thing that went wrong was U-Haul not having the 17’ truck that I reserved, so they upgraded me to the 26’ “Super Mover” at no additional cost. The too-big truck made loading the furniture way too easy. Downsides were the gas required for the 502 big-block gasoline Chev, (note to U-Haul: get diesel engines), and having to pay commercial truck rate on the ferry. A little well placed dissatisfaction at the truck return office, and I no longer had to make up the extra cost of only replacing $150 of the $200 worth of fuel used during the drive. I’m happy with that.
The new place is pretty sweet; two bedrooms, green yard, wood fireplace, our own driveway, and a quiet street. We had a houseful of guests here for the long weekend, Spencer drove my car down for me and picked up Chloe along the way, Jeff and Ingrid came over from Vancouver, and Craig was over regularly. The lot of us enjoyed several days of pub fare, beer, and catching up. Now the dust has settled, Christine’s at work and I’m back from my first day of class.
More later.

Truck loading day

Been up since 0611, nervous as hell.

The last work day

Been up since 0530, nervous as hell.

Alright then, just two more days ya big woosie

Originally my employment notice had been given for this Friday, the 26th of August. I had figured on having a solid week for moving and settling down in Victoria before school started. Then it was discovered that the people who currently occupy our future home won’t be moving until the very last day possible. The day after that will be taken up by our landlord installing new carpet. This isn’t a bad thing, but it does cut that much deeper into the allocated transition period. All this adds up to a long stretch between my last day of work and moving day. People were telling me that I should spend it camping/hiking, but I’m too stressed out to have planned anything so fancy. I would have just wound up sitting on my ass in front of the computer for 5 days.

Enter my boss: Today he walked into my office and said “I can’t let you leave yet”. This was nothing new, people had been teasing me for the last few weeks about having my ankle chained to the desk… especially as D-day approached and we still hadn’t found a suitable replacement. Turns out he was serious though, the 9 weeks notice I gave just wasn’t enough, and he was promising to make it worth my while if I’d stay on until the 31st. I bargained him down to the 30th, and now I have something to keep me busy next week! Now I'll only spend the afternoons of Monday and Tuesday on my ass in front of the computer... hooray!

The new Buyer/Planner has officially been selected and I begin training him tomorrow. Half of the upstairs sales staff had applied to the internal posting for my position, but we wanted somebody with purchasing experience, even if it wasn’t in the industry. (Nobody from upstairs sales has a frigin clue about how we build things here anyways.) Now I’ve got just 5 days to get this dude all learned-up, comfortable, and familiar with the key materials planning that’s needed to keep things running. If I miss anything he’ll just have to go to my boss or the production planners for help.

Screenshot of the week

It's been quite a few weeks since I had one of these, but I don't much feel like typing words 'n such.

My brother and I with our new characters..... we're cows, and we dance.

I’m an omnivore and I’m okay

The other day I had some great sushi for lunch, but I didn’t get the standard woosie-assed little seaweed rolls, I got the real deal… the salmon Nigiri. For those of us who’s Japanese is a little rusty, that roughly translates to “big chunks of raw salmon”. It was awesome. Not very often do you come across a food that actually tastes like its really good for you, cooked food seems stripped and bleached by comparison.
While I was eating it I felt like a hungry grizzly bear, sitting in a stream and tearing into spawn-running salmon with my teeth and claws. Perhaps the bears are on to something with that diet… if I could only find a reliable source for fresh berries and grubs.

I’ve been having this odd reoccurring dream lately. It’s come back to haunt me at least a half dozen times over the last year… In it I’m sitting in a truck, either my old pickup or the work 5-ton, and the brakes don’t work. Not in the way you’re thinking, I’m not doing 100 kph down a hill with a sharp corner, I’m just trying to stay stopped. No matter how hard I push on the brakes, with both feet even, the truck refuses to stay put. It slowly rolls backwards or forwards on level ground, in a parking lot or at a stoplight. The only way to keep it close to where it should be is to constantly shift from forward to reverse every few seconds, using the engine idle speed to bump it back into position. At one point, with the 5-ton, I even got out to place wheel chocks under the back tires. Nothin, rolled right over them. I’m sure there are all kinds of meanings that can be derived from this. The best one that I can come up with on my own is that I don’t like change (duh). No matter how hard I try to keep things static, the big ol’ truck of my life just keeps on rollin. It’s sad, I know.
One of these nights I’m just gonna take my feet off the brake and stomp on the gas, I bet I could do a lot of damage.

Another weekend well spent

Warcraft, beer, Warcraft, beer, food, Warcraft, weed, Warcraft, beer.

Teamed up with my brother, Spencer and Craig for some great games on Saturday. Then on Sunday we all just took the time to work on our other characters…I leveled my mage from 54 to 56 in one day, even my fellow geeky guildmates were impressed.

There’s been a story going around the WoW community that some dude in Korea actually played till he died. Turns out it’s true, but it wasn’t World of Warcraft that killed him, it was Starcraft. Another great (and addictive) online game, by the same developers. Anyways, this guy sat in an internet café and played for 50 hours straight, only stopping to go to the washroom and catch quick naps. Eventually his heart just crapped out on him. Check it out:

Death by Starcraft

I discovered a quicker/easier way to post pics.... now I'm gonna do it all the damn time

I didn't receive a single fax at my office yesterday morning. It was strange, but I didn't mind the peace and quiet. It turned into a pain in the ass when I started getting calls; suppliers telling me that they had in fact been trying to fax me, but couldn't get through. I pulled out my old fax machine that had been collecting dust in the closet, hooked it up, and faxed myself from upstairs... nothing. Sure enough it's not the fax but the telephone line. The telecom dudes came out this morning to have a look, found a signal at the wall jack but not at the machine. So the cable gets pulled out from behind the cabinet, and here's what we found:



Bloody rodent. I wonder what plastic and copper tastes like to a mouse?

Breaking News: Yankees steal from Canucks

Late last week, in a daring operation that was apparently orchestrated and funded by the state of California, a squad of American troops infiltrated Canadian soil. Their objective, water.
The crack tactical team that was led by those cheesy dudes from the 80's American Ninja movies, crossed the border at night onboard stealth-equipped helicopters. They repelled into the trees just North of Cherryville BC, and rendezvoused with a group of enslaved Scottish engineers that had just surfaced from a freshly dug tunnel. The tunnel, that stretches over 600kms from the Northern edge of California to the Shuswap river, was lined with a massive 22ft dia PVC pipe. Retired ninja actors and muddy Scotts worked together to make the final connections, rerouting the flow of the river below Sugar Lake into the pipe. They then destroyed the old Hydro dam, allowing the lake’s entire contents to drain into the opening.
The tunnel is still defended at this end by the bulk of the Ninja team, all sporting nunchucks and M-16s. Several attempts have been made by local Mounties and the Canadian military to retake the river… but every advance has been repelled by threats from the Americans to override our communication satellites with broadcasted re-runs of 90’s sitcoms Full House and Family Matters.
BC Premier Gordon Campbell was unavailable for comment, citing a previous engagement with a bottle of Rye. However, the office of Prime Minister Paul Martin did release this quote for the press: “They’re Americans, Californians no less, this isn’t the first time they’ve stolen from us... and undoubtedly won’t be the last. But what can we do about it? Complain to NAFTA? The UN? They'd obviously find in our favor, but it’s never made a difference in the past so why should it now?”
Governor Schwarzenegger had this to say about the matter: "I'll be back, for what's left of your hockey players."

Sugar Lake, before and after.

The final act

About a year or so ago... my friend Jeff Fisher was having problems with his computer. First his hard drive went, then the mainboard. The guys at the local outlet were quoting him some nasty figure for what he'd only be using for email and surfing, so I volunteered to build him a budget machine. He shipped his old computer up from Van, I salvaged what was usable, added it to the upgrades, and shipped back a complete unit. When I asked him if he wanted the old parts back he said: "I'd really rather see pictures of it under the wheels of your truck." Fair enough. I never got around to it right away though, and it wasn't until I was readying the truck for sale that I found his old comp again. So here it is, the last goofy-assed, truck-specific thing I ever did with her.

I actually cried for a minute

Tonight I sold my truck.... as a result, I made a conscious descision to get wasted.
Now I'm drunk, stoned, and melancholy... all I've got are pictures to remind me of the 10 years I had with the 'ol girl.
I'll put those pictures up when I'm sober.

Pictures from the long weekend.

The view from the first campsite. As great as it was, we opted to move on to another when the horseflies started outnumbering the mosquitos.

"...it came in through the trees, hovered above the tent, then took off that way."

This old balloon found its way onto a stump near the creek, it was trying to tell us something.

Culverts smoke alot after you toss a few homemade bombs into them.

Spencer and I climbed up Mount Yeoward the next morning. I did take lots of pics, but my old flash card died and all was lost... so here's one of the same view, taken two summers ago.

James Doohan: March 3, 1920 - July 20, 2005

As my friend Spencer just pointed out, my finger has obviously strayed from the pulse of the Star Trek community.
Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott passed away last week, and my lack of recent TV viewing had left me grossly uninformed.
We'll miss ya Scotty.

StarTrek.com Obituary
.

My brother's cat...

... is so fluffy, that little tufts of fur are sprouting from between his toes.
If you were that fluffy, you'd sleep like this too.

word

Granola is crunchy

I’m at work, eating handfuls from a 1kg bag of 5-grain maple raisin granola that I keep in my desk drawer. One of these bags will usually last me at least 3 or 4 days, and is so much better than the little overpriced bags of chips that my coworkers all buy from the vending machine in the lunchroom. I’ve got an entire filing-sized drawer that’s dedicated to tea, fruit/veggie juice boxes, crackers, etc. Some neckless dude at a nutrition shop once told me that the best thing for keeping your metabolism up is to eat lots of small meals throughout the day, rather than stuffing yourself with 2 or 3 big ones. So instead of eating a breakfast or lunch, I just snack a half-dozen times.
The only downside is that every week or so I need to make a trip to the grocery store in Armstrong to replenish my supply… and it’s impossible to walk from the parking lot to my office, while carrying a couple bags of food, without some asshole exclaiming “what’d ya bring me?” Will those stupid at-work phrases ever grow old and die? I say at-work because nobody talks to their friends, family, or strangers on the street like that… just the people that they see every day at work and don’t have anything intelligent to say to. “Workin hard or hardly workin?” There’s another frickin gem. Somebody said that once back in 1926, his chums thought it was hilarious, they all told the story to their families that night at the dinner table, and it was passed down through 3 generations of factory and office workers.
Well, its 16:25 now, time to go home. Another day, another dollar.
Kiss my ass.

Damn dogs

I’ve got some tomato plants in my brother’s greenhouse. They were germinated on a window sill before I moved, and then transplanted to a large container just last week. They’re now sitting in a layered blend of perlite and peat moss that should hold lots of moisture while they bake under the toasty plastic sheeting. I looked at them yesterday after work and decided that they had adapted quite nicely and could probably handle a shot of fertilizer. Out came my bottle of fish oil emulsion. Originally purchased for the hydroponics setup I had built for growing tomatoes and cucumbers during the winter, it was packed away when I discovered that fish water wasn’t something you wanted anywhere near hot lights inside your house. It was however perfect for the outdoor greenhouse. I mixed up a jug and added it to the veggies, and poured what was left into the other various plants, then went inside to play Warcraft. My brother came inside a little while later, after having just gone out for a smoke. He says to me, “How full was that bottle of fertilizer?”
His landlords have three dogs, two of which are barely a year old and still very much in shit-disturbing puppy mode. One of them went into the porch and dug around the plants, and tracked the concentrated scent back to the bottle. She then packed it out to the lawn and chewed the cap off, leaving a big puddle of brown goo on the grass. My brother arrived just in time to take the wrecked bottle away and chase the dog off. I wasn’t too terribly worried about the dog or the grass, since it was all organic… but we used water to dilute the shit outta the puddle anyways, soaking it down into the turf.
Later that night I’m laying in bed (in my tent) when there's a curious noise outside, poking my head out the door reveals one of the dogs excitedly nosing the patch of grass where the spill occurred. "Oh well, go nuts mutt, I’m going to sleep."
This morning I roll outta bed, climb outside and stand up to stretch. The patch of lawn looks different; rub the sleep from my eyes and step closer. It almost looks as if somebody went at it with a small shovel, but there are no nearby piles of removed dirt. Not only did the dogs eat the grass, they ate entire mouthfuls of turf and soil. Does concentrated dead fish funk really taste that good? Is it worth plugging up your digestive system with a couple pounds of dirt and rocks? Hopefully I’ll never really know.

Twas a sad time indeed for Mr. Thomson

Here's an HTML version of the poster sheet that I've pinned to the bulletin boards at work.
I didn't bother getting fancy, since it was printed in black & white.

Click here

(Contact info has been removed for security purposes)

My baby's coming home

I’m picking Christine up at the airport today….
I leave work early at 14:45, plane lands at 15:35
Jeff’s a happy boy by 15:41
Home by 16:30
Beers cracked and food on the BBQ by 17:30
In bed by 23:00
Asleep by 01:00
I realize I’m sounding pretty optimistic with that last line, I’m not 19 anymore… but I have been workin out ya know.

No more McDonalds, ever

Saturday night was spent drinking lots of beer and eating lots of pizza. I passed out on the couch where I awoke at 0520 the next morning. After a couple hours spent unpacking some household items and setting up the comp, I drove up to the old house to hook up with the new tenants (my co-worker and her boyfriend) and gave them a guided tour of the workings of the house and the 3-ton truck. On the way back down I swung through the McDs drivethrough for some breakfast.
I’ve never been a big fan of McDonalds, their burgers pretty tasteless, but I do admit to a fondness for their breakfast bagels.
Anyways, I’m at the order window, where you talk to a girl in person now, and notice a special on the board: “With any breakfast item you can add two hashbrowns and a coffee for just $0.70.” Sounds like a good deal to me, except that coffee goes through me like a laser beam. So I ask the girl, “Can I switch the coffee for a green tea and still get the deal?” “Sure” she says, “no problem”. Cool. I pull around the corner and wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Almost 10 minutes pass before the minivan and pickup in front of me suddenly move off together. Now waiting at the window for me to pull up is a too-skinny 17 year old goth girl. She hands me my tea, I say thanx, and she just gives a little head flick that looked unlike a nod, but more like a nose up / eye roll gesture. I notice that my tea package says Orange Pekoe, and not Green. When she returns with the bagel I ask if I can trade it for the green that I ordered. “That’s the only tea we got.” Was her annoyed reply. Great, thanks again. I get home and sit down, steep the nasty Orange Pekoe, and eat a hashbrown patty. Then reach for the second and find… bagel. No second hashbrown. Oh well, moving on. Three bites into my bagel I stopped and pointed the bitten end at my brother, saying “what do you suppose that is?” Inside, coating a portion of each of its 3 or 4 layers of cheese and egg, is a bright silvery metallic paste. It almost looks like somebody got waaay to vigorous with a metal tool on their grill, and then somehow transferred those scrapings through the entire depth of my sandwich. I broke that chunk off and finished what was now just half a meal.
Long story short, the only thing that kept me returning to McDs from time-to-time, despite their bad rap and fattening sawdust food, was their breakfast menu. Now that experience has been well and truly disgusting as well, I can’t see myself going back.

The dust settles

Saturday’s move was absolutely beautiful.
I had spent the last week and a half preparing the entire house for that day. Every single item I own was properly packaged and sorted according to destination. There was no way I was going to let the experience be anywhere near as stressful as the one-day hell move that I made from 40th ave to this place two summers ago.
Note to self for future: 90% of moving stress is a direct result of insufficient planning and preparation.
Spencer arrived nice and early, several bottles of Gatorade in tow, just as I finished the last of the cleaning. We set to work right away, running everything up to the 3-ton truck that I had borrowed from work. The truck’s huge 8’ x 20’ deck perfectly accommodated everything that was bound for my in-law’s basement in just one load. My brother arrived and we loaded up his and Spencer’s cars with the items that were staying with me, and then we piled into the 3-ton and boogied. Unloading at Mary & Rick’s was quick and painless, barely 40 minutes to run everything down around the side of the house and in through the wide patio door to the basement. Our efficiency was celebrated with a few beers afterwards, generously provided by our furniture storage hosts. Back up to the house to drop off the truck and take the cars down to Chris’s. There we unloaded my clothes, computer, and collection of 18th century miniature wicker poodles... (Can’t live without those). Grabbed my bro’s industrial strength vacuum and ran back up to do a final sweep of the old digs. Said goodbye to the neighbor, who seemed annoyed that I didn’t find the time during my last few days of packing to mow my post-rainy lawn, and roared back down the hill to my new home.
Time: 4:00 PM.
Elapsed time after factoring out extended beer break: 5 hours *new record*
Thanx to all those who made it possible….. Spencer “Sprinty” Watson, for once again being ready to work all day for me. Chris, for helping me to move then opening up his home to his poor, roofless brother. Christine’s parents, for smiling and offering us beer despite my invading their house with a monstrous pile of junk.

Perpetual anxiety...

...built up to barely tolerable levels a couple weeks back, plateaued up until today, and then it spiked. This will be the last post from the comfort of my current home, tomorrow I move. Come Sunday I should be able to relax for a bit. Yeah, right up until the family wedding in two weeks, followed by another in August. Then I leave my job, then I move again, then I start school. It’s like looking at the dark, at the end of the dark, at the end of the tunnel.
Baby steps, one near-death experience at a time... I’ll let you know on Sunday if I survived this one.

The expressive TV preacher

Sure it's immature toilet humor... but this guy's facial exressions, combined with perfect sound effect timing from the sick bastard who edited this together... still leaves me laughing my ass off.

Click here

I love it.

Triumph kicks ass

Click here: Michael is innocent!!

Livin in a van, down by the river

I’ve started to pack for the upcoming move, dividing everything into 3 categories:
- Items that I can live without for the rest of the summer, which are going into storage in the basement of Christine’s parent’s house
- Items that are dead weight to me but might be of some use to my coworker who will be moving into my house when I’m gone
- Necessities that will be coming with me to my brother’s house

I’m going to spend the next 2 months living with my bro… since living all by myself in a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath house means a lot of potential beer money is getting blown on excessive rent and utilities. That and my brother can hook me up with some hot babes.

Chris has a little basement suite just east of Swan Lake, where he’s just finished building an enclosed patio with combined greenhouse, and I look forward to many relaxing nights sitting out there in a lawn chair with a fire and some music. The best part though, is I’m gonna be “camping” the whole time. Since it’s just a one bedroom suite, my logical destination would have been the living room couch… but that’s just plain awkward. The last thing I would want for my brother and his houseguests would be to have to push the laundry off of my bed/couch in order to have a place to sit while watching TV. So while I’ll still essentially live with him in his house, using his kitchen and bathroom, I’ll just sleep outside in my tent. Most of the people I’ve spoken to about this think it’s kinda odd, but I’m looking forward to it. The least I can do for my brother, after he so readily offered up his home for me, is to try and retain a semblance of privacy for him.

If I was staying there any longer than two months I’d also make a point of embracing the tent living lifestyle…. Grow my hair out, buy some old corduroys, carve an elaborate water bong that would display from a hanging pocket inside the tent, build a monument to the hop gods outta empty beer cans outside the door, and tell people who pass by that I’ll give them a Tarot card reading if they give me a ride into town to visit my parole officer.

The only downside is that getting outta bed to go use the washroom will now require some form of clothing.

VOIP

Voice Over Internet Protocol
It’s been around for a long time, at least as long as broadband has been available, but I’ve never really had a use for it before. However, ever since watching the “Leeroy” World of Warcraft fan video (scroll down a bit), I’ve been thinking about how much cooler it would be to use real time voice chat with my online buddies while playing. Typing out text messages in the game is all fine and good, until you get into a situation where you need to communicate very quickly or in great detail, and then it gets clunky. There’s been many a time where I had been playing in a group with people and suddenly needed to tell them something while we’re already engaged in a battle… and having to let go of the mouse and hotkeys long enough to type “There’s another one coming up behind”, or even just “help” or “lookout”, is an eternity in which my own character is rendered physically unable to respond to the impending issue. Spencer had obviously been thinking the same thing; cuz he checked out then clued me into a program called Skype… and it’s great. The interface is much like a plain old messaging program, you fire it up and it checks your contact list for who’s online, then gives you the option to call them. Once connected it works just like a telephone conversation, except you’re speaking into your hands-free desktop microphone, and the voice is coming through the PC speakers. Spencer and I tried it out briefly a couple days ago, then Craig picked up a headset and joined the party last night. We still need to hammer out a few kinks, but already the game experience is a lot more enjoyable… so much more playing time is spent actually accomplishing something, rather than stopping every few seconds to hammer out a few lines of text.
I’m all about efficiency when it comes to my unhealthy addictions.

The new monitor

mmmm.... LCDlicious. 19 inches of it.

Does it hurt?

Every couple of weeks or so, my liquor store brings in a couple of new imported beers to add to their already ample specialty selection... and I make a point of trying to sample everything at least once. Black Sheep Brewery makes a very nice roasted ale called Riggwelter, which in their local Yorkshire dialect, is an old Norse word that's used to describe a sheep that's fallen over on it's back and can't get up. Anyways, they've just shipped us Canadians a new beer that just seemed to leap off the shelf and into my basket... yeah, you heard me right, my basket.

Welcome to badger country

LEEEERRROOOY!!!

If you play World of Warcraft, then you have to watch this.
If you play, or have played, other similar MMORPGs, then you should watch it.
If you don't know what an MMORPG is, then don't watch this... trust me, you won't get it.

Download movie
.

My tummy hurts again

I think I've been MSG'd by a bowl of Ichiban noodles.

Earlier today the plant's maintenance foreman came into my office to yack with me about something. When I eventually got up to grab a glass of water from the cooler, he turned around to check the fax machine for a service quotation that he was expecting. I saw my opportunity and grabbed a handful of his coveralls at the back of the waist, then gave him a couple of sharp yoinks. He was a little surprised at first, then just put his hand on his back and slumped over a bit, looking at me all sad and hurt-like. I responded with a silly grin, and then he exclaimed:
"Ooowwwwww.... you broke my hymen".
Maybe you had to be there, but I've been laughing all day since.

Scenes from bachelor life: # 1

Eventually, you reach a point where the effort required to find a spot to place a bottle or dirty dish, is greater than that of just cleaning up... I'm almost there.

Perogies

Nearly every day in the office, at about 12:00, I’m bombarded by a cloud of a home-cooked-meal smell that comes wafting down the hallway. I’ve traced the cloud to its source several times now, and every time I happen upon the same strange phenomenon; the coworker whose office the smell trail ends at will be sitting at his desk, eating from a red Tupperware container. He’ll grin at me when I walk in, and let me know what he’s got for treats that day. When he’s finished, the empty tupperware goes back into a white plastic bag that rests on the shelf behind him. The next day, the Tupperware always re-emerges from the bag, always containing a fresh helping of stew, or mashed potatoes with veggies, or (in today’s case) perogies with onions and sausage…. You get the idea, it all looks and smells really good.
I’ve decided that I’m too old to believe in magic lunch bags anymore, so he must be bringing the refilled tupperware from home. However, the coworker in question is a male accountant who drives a racecar in his spare time, so chances are he’s not the one preparing these meals. When all other possibilities have been eliminated, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the solution. Someone else, at or near his home, is preparing the tupperware during his off-work hours. Possibly his wife?
I approached my coworker about this, asking him if it was possible for others to join in on this fantastic arrangement. Specifically, what it would cost me to have him bring in an extra tupperware every day? He responded with: “No problem, just call my wife at home, 555-5555... tell her that you want a lunch made for yourself as well. She loves coking and will be happy to provide.”
I think he was lying to me.
More study is definitely required on the subject.

The force is strong in the new Pope.

" Christ be with you.... young Jedi "

The Garage Sale

A couple weeks ago I went out to the shed to grab/replace a tool for something I was fixing in the house, I ran into my neighbor who was tending her outdoor fish pond. She mentioned her intention to have a garage sale, and was busy recruiting other households in the community to participate. I looked back into the shed, at all the crap that I was dreading having to pack up and move, and said that I’d love to join in. Later that weekend I watched Fight Club (another great movie), and was moved by the whole “The things you own end up owning you…” theme. I don’t think I could bring myself to destroy everything and then move into a condemned house with just the clothes on my back. Maybe I could just try and lose the packrat mentality that’s plagued me for as long as I’ve had a place to put things.
Most anything that hadn’t been utilized in the last 6 months, (excluding items of sentimental value), went up on the block. Anything that was associated with my truck, or required my truck for transport, (spare parts, tires, the boat, etc.) Anything that could easily be replaced with newer, smaller, and more efficient versions by the time I wanted to use it again, (the stereo speakers). All the old computer hardware that was left over from the “buy old, rebuild, and re-sell” program I had going a couple years back went out on the road.
Compared to my two neighbors who lined the side of the road with me, I had by far the best stuff. They were unloading garbage, I was unloading volume.
I was actually surprised at how many customers we had, considering we’re out in the sticks. If I had known earlier that so many would come, I never would have let stuff go as cheaply as I did to the vultures that showed up almost 90 minutes before the advertised start time of 0900. I was still hauling most of it out of the house when a couple of gents came around with their little pickup. They browsed through the stuff up top, and then followed me down to the house. Picked through the computers, bought the stereo speakers and secondary VCR, and then started pointing out other stuff in the house. “How about the TV? How about that oil heater? How about the kitchen table?” Being hung over as I was, and concerned that these would be some of the only customers, I gave them good deals on what I was willing to part with (none of the other items they pawed at), then sent them on their way with a wave and a smile. Looking back, I’m confident that everything they bought is now sitting on a shelf in a local second-hand store, listed at 5 times the price that they paid for it. This was my first garage sale, so shit like that was bound to happen… next time it won’t.
I learned a few other things this weekend.
In the Okanagan, it’s just as easy to get sunburn in April as it is in July.
Telling someone the life story behind an item they’re holding does nothing to change the fact that they only wanna spend 4 dollars on it.
90% of garage sale surfers are seniors, 90% of seniors know nothing about computers, 90% of those looking for computers aren’t interested in buying two old pieces of shit, (despite the low cost), in order to have enough parts to reassemble one working computer. 90% of my computer hardware was still sitting in the sun on Sunday afternoon.
Now it’s in the trunk of the car, bound for the recycling depot.
It was all a worthwhile venture though; most of what didn’t sell is getting picked up by the local non-profit agency for their upcoming garage sale. I’ve got a couple truckloads-worth of crap off my hands.
I’m $225 richer.
Hopefully I won’t have to do that again for a long time.

Puck Fiction

If you've ever seen the movie Pulp Fiction, and you're Canadian (ie: you've watched hockey), then you also need to watch this clip:

Coach Jules

Evaluation time

Looks like I'm gonna be switching from hourly wages to a salary pretty soon, probably at the end of the month. This will be my first salary experience. No more having to save up to compensate for lost wages during a vacation. No more punching the clock on my way in and out. No more having to adjust my hours in response to a missed or extended lunch break. It’d be pretty cool if it was gonna last past September.
On the plus side, the switch will come with a raise.
It’s been almost 1.5 years since the last one. And thanx to the little prick who used to manage the place, (and I mean little… Napoleon complex radiated from his towering 5’5” frame), that raise was only 19% of the figure that was requested from him by my boss. The whole office staff suffered that time around, the average raise was about 35 cents. The little prick however, thanx to his efficient spending, was promoted to Regional manager. Then a few months later, to VP of Canadian Operations. His VP job required that he move back to Quebec and into an office at headquarters. We didn’t miss him. Well I heard that he wasn’t enjoying himself at the big office… after all, what good is a 200k+ salary when you’re not the biggest fish in the pond anymore? The little prick has recently quit the company and moved on.
OK. Rant finished.
I have to fill out a “Work performance self evaluation” form for my boss. It’s multiple choice, with “A: Exceptional” through to “E: Improvement needed” for each of a couple dozen questions. This must be what going to salary is all about; they wanna know what I think about my own attitude, where I see myself going in the company, and if my employees trust and respect me. There’s a second column next to each question, for my boss to insert his A – E opinion of my performance for each question. That way I can compare the answers on a bar graph and see if I’m overly modest or suffer from delusions of grandeur. My original plan was to make a photocopy of this test, then fill it out twice. One with my honest answers, and the other with the extreme polar opposites for each. I’d give my boss the fake one first and have a laugh before presenting the original…. Unfortunately, he’s already written on it with blue ink, so he’d probably catch on a little too quickly, but maybe I’ll do it anyways.
A sense of humor is always a good thing to “bring to the table”.

All better now.

The two days since my last post can be quickly summed up with this quote, direct from the screenplay for Trainspotting... (Great movie)

"At or around this time, we made a healthy, informed, democratic decision to get back on drugs as soon as possible. It took about twelve hours."

Ahhhh.... ready fer the weekend.

Jibblies!! I got em...who wants em? Jibblies, dizzy spells and weird blood pressure surges in my limbs...

I ran outta pills yesterday.
The last time I had my prescription refilled was in December, and I got enough all in one shot to carry me through until springtime. The sun’s out and the birds are chirping now. Now would be the right time to kick these things to the curb. But with all the happenings and goings on concerning the likelihood of an impending move and return to school, I’ve been getting a little stressed out. Make that a lot stressed out. All the springtime in the world isn’t gonna balance me out.
For the last few weeks I’ve looked into my pill bottle every morning and thought, “Better get some more, no I’m gonna quit, no…” When I finally did decide to quit, it was far too late to begin a proper dose reduction schedule. I had a repeat of last winter: ”Uh-oh, just 4 pills left, better cut em in half.” And that was the elaborate weaning process.
Watch for me on the news tomorrow: Local office worker quits his anti-anxiety meds early, attempts to subdue the withdrawal symptoms by popping metabolism boosters. Two dead, four wounded… more at 11:00.
Anyways, enough about how frickin stupid I am…. Time for something more interesting.
My car was broken into over the weekend. No damage, just a slight case of missing CD wallets... I must have left it unlocked.
The car, along with me, was parked at home all weekend. I wasn’t going anywhere after all; I had borrowed the HD LCD projector from work and spent the whole time playing Warcraft while lying in bed with the screen blasted out across the entire wall above me. It was bliss. I had my speakers on each end table and the sub under the bed... keyboard on my lap, the mouse in one hand and a beer in the other. I was being bombarded by enough sensory input that I barely noticed the noisy 17-21 year old party that was going on in the house next door. The next morning I came out long enough to pick up a few empty beer bottles off my front lawn. (Empty Coronas and MGDs, sure sign of barely-post-teen party).
Come Monday, on my way home from work, I pulled a disc out of the stereo and went to exchange it for another. After a few minutes of searching, followed by sheer disbelief, it became apparent that my two cases were indeed not in the car. *I live in a small strata community out in the boonies, this wasn't the result of kids out prowling downtown streets and looking for something to steal.* I gave it an extra day just to make sure they didn’t turn up, and then yesterday after work I knocked on the neighbor’s door. The younger of the two brothers answered my calling. I had planned out the conversation well beforehand, what I’d say if he took offense to my suggestions and what not, and I remained very diplomatic. I asked him if by chance it was a party where “friends of friends that couldn’t be accounted for” showed up, and if any of those people had left anything behind at his place. He looked slightly startled, then saddened, and said “Oh-no, did stuff go missing from your place too?” Turns out that my suspicions were correct, the boys’ party got way outta hand, people they didn’t know showed up, and a bunch of their own stuff disappeared as well. He promised me that if he did manage to track down his own CDs, (which I’m sure he’s trying very hard to do… a 17 year old’s music collection is always very important to him), then he’d be sure to return mine.
Oh well... granted, half of my collection was purchased music that I’ve had for about seven years now, (since the last time my vehicle was broken into), but a lot of it was just mixed discs that I stole off the internet. Karma I suppose.

My! Where did you get that lovely spatula?

A face that only his agent could love

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting our resident thespian, Mr. Jeffrey Fisher.
Coming very soon to a television advertising campaign near you...
(He's the one without the pocket protector)

http://www.drinkmilk.ca/
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Little.. pink....flippin crazy

I found this little pill on the floor in the hallway at my office. From what's stamped on the surface, it would appear to be 50 mgs of medicinal PMS. I'm gonna pop it one day, just to see what it feels like to be completely void of logic and rational thought.

Ken wants to play too.

Habnar... good ta hear yer gonna join us. The server you want is ULDUM.
Spencer, Craig and I will watch for ya.

Screenshot of the week

Late night fishing.

Polar bears are cute... in an "I could rip your face off without even having to stop and think about it" kinda way.

I remember when I was a kid, living in Princeton, there was this old pinup in the back of the kitchen pantry. It was a black and white picture of a huge polar bear, sprawled lazily on its back and facing the camera, with one giant paw raised in the air. I'm pretty sure the caption underneath read "Today I may rise, but I refuse to shine". When I was really young though, the image just never made sense to me, it looked like two creatures. One that vaguely resembled a bear, and the other some kinda crazy monster that had thrown the bear to the ground and was now looking over its shoulder. I still remember the minor epiphany I had when I finally recognized it as being just one polar bear. The monster was obviously the bear’s paw, with the pads resembling eyes and a mouth, and the claws being little horns on its head.
Yeah, whatever…. This picture reminded me of that one.

(I still don't know what's up with the purse wielding penguin on the left....)

Salesmen lie. It's what they do.

* My office phone rings, I answer it…*
Me: “Jeff here”
Slimeball: “Hello Jeff, this is Wayne Sumthinmumble, calling from Yadda-Blah-Yadda Advertising. Is this a good time to talk? Do you have a couple minutes?”
* I’m not leaving out names to protect anyone, they honestly just didn’t register in my brain *
Me: “Well, I am pretty busy this morning, but what’s up?”
Slimeball: “We handle promotional items, gifts, clothing and things of that nature. We spoke some time ago and I promised I’d call you in the new year if we had anything new and unique.”
Me: “Alllriiight…” (Knowing he's full of shit already)
Slimeball: “Are you a golfer Jeff?”
Me: “No”
Slimeball: “Well, are you familiar with what’s called a divot repair tool?”
Me: “Oh yeah, I remember this one now, it's the one with the cigar cutter and the fancy box, right?”
Slimeball: -slight pause- “Well, what it is, is a 14k gold set that includes a divot tool, cigar cutter, and somethin else, and it all comes in a beautifully finished wood grain box. We’ve just completed a big job with Microsoft in Seattle, where they ordered up hundreds of these to hand out to their business partners. We’ve got some left over, and I’d like to offer you a special deal so that you can help us clear the remaining inventory.”
Me: “Oh yeah, you called me about these things a month ago… except in that spiel, you had done the big job for Can-Am or Can West or somebody like that.”
Slimeball: -another slight pause- “Oh, I called you about these before?”
Me: “Yeah, just $19.99 each, right?
Slimeball: -long pause- “How many did you want?”
Me: “Ha-ha… naw, I’m good thanx.”
Slimeball: “Allrighttalktoyalaterbye”
* click *
Me (to the hung-up phone): “Yeah, and don’t call me again… dink.”

Screenshot of the week

All the assholes, all lined up.

R.E.M. sleep

Had the craziest dreams last night…. It would seem that my typical daytime activities are dominating my unconscious thoughts once again. The last time this happened was a couple years ago when we implemented SAP at my work. The bulk of the changeover lasted for a brutally stressful six weeks. Six weeks of 10-14 hour days, 6-7 days a week. In just over a month I logged 90 hours-worth of overtime. The anxiety and frustration that accompanied every long day of that incredibly difficult software transition eventually led to a near nervous breakdown on my part. I had come home early (7pm) on a Friday night cuz I was feeling kinda ill… and ended up in bed, shaking, crying and vomiting. I couldn’t get visions of SAP and work out of my head, every time I closed my eyes I would see my computer screen and my coworkers, clear as day. Needless to say I finally took a weekend off.
Alright, I didn’t mean to go quite that far in that direction… what I was getting at just reminded me of that time in my life… spending enough time at something that it began to dominate my off-time thinking. Except this is a happy thing. And what I was getting at was, *wait for it…*, World of Warcraft again.
Last night I had some dreams that were undoubtedly virtually stimulated. I dreamt that my brother, Spencer and I, and maybe a few other people that I undoubtedly knew but couldn’t identify, were exploring some kind of dungeonesque environment. We were standing in a large open chamber, surrounded by wide doors and open archways that led to other chambers. Every so often this one door would open up, and with the efficient predictability of an 8-bit Nintendo game, two shambling zombies would “jog” towards us. We’d meet them head-on and dispatch them rather quickly. They were, after all, just level 1 monsters... and we were all at least level 3 or 4. This got boring after a while, and it was decided that we would venture into one of the other doorways. Doorway number 1 was out of the question, we could see level 10+ monsters running around in there. We moved on to another door and headed in... this one turned out to be an underground city, inhabited by the undead; all going about their daily business like it was a big shopping mall. Our group somehow managed to instantly disguise ourselves to fit in, either that or the zombies just didn’t care that we were among them. This was kinda odd for me... in the game I play a Paladin, a holy warrior who’s gifted in battling the undead and their nasty ilk. So I’ve of course never been welcome in Undercity, the undead player’s capital…. but I doubt that it looks like a mall inside. Anyways, most of the group had wandered off now, and my brother and I were just touring about. We came to a glass-fronted store that had a big sign overtop of it, “Double Tamped Plots” was its name. I wondered what that meant…. graves that had been packed extra tight with dirt in order to ensure that their contents remained below? The inside of the store was just a large, unfurnished area, with a 40 ft circular dirt patch in the center… and there were 3 zombies playing baseball on it, just the pitcher, batter and catcher though, no bases. Something about this room made my brother really excited, he ran in through the sliding glass doors then back and forth across the dirt patch. The zombies stopped their game and stood against the wall, watching him with blank faces. Just as I figured that something wasn’t quite right, and moved to pull my brother out of the room, two giant gorilla skeletons burst from the dirt directly in front of him, and he ran right into them. He pulled out a sword and tried to fight them off, but they were a much higher level than him and he was in big trouble. So I reached for my weapon, which had for some reason transformed into my keychain remote for my car’s door locks. I pointed it at the nearest skeleton and began pushing the unlock button as quickly as I could, and noiseless little streams of green bullets came out in clustered groups. The keychain remote was impossible to aim, and even the ones that managed to make contact did frustratingly little damage to the monster. I knew this because I wondered if I was making any impact, and right then a health meter appeared in the corner of my vision, telling me that I was going to run out of ammunition long before this thing died... but I had no choice but to keep on firing. Right about there is where it ended, my brother and I obviously perishing shortly after I awoke from the odd crap that my subconscious had strung together.
Yeah. Back to work now.

She's (mostly) finished...

I'll be the first to admit that the final result was quite a bit different from what I first pictured in my head when I thought this project up... but the function is still the same. A combination of fountain, fogger humidifier, planter, and cat waterer. The wooden box surrounds a rubbermaid plastic bin which acts as a catch basin, from there a 4 watt pump sends the water up a 1/4" hose inside the length of bamboo at the back. It pours into the ceramic pot at the top also which has a fogger in it, (I still need to put some rocks in there to hide the wire), and that overflows into the bamboo trough in the front. Then it spills down into another catch trough at the bottom for the cats to drink from. The cats love "running" water, and took to drinking from it the first time I turned it on. All n' all I think it turned out pretty well, but next time I'm gonna use a slightly larger pump, I'm not too impressed with the flow rate outta this one. Now if I could only keep the trickling water noise from making people have to pee...

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Tub walkin'

As some of you may have gathered from previous posts here on my blog, our plant just underwent another major expansion to our production facilities. In keeping with "Lean thinking" and "Kaizan", (a new Japanese method of production streamlining that we've adopted), the new lines were laid out with the utmost efficiency in mind at all times. Part of that efficiency requires that all material flow patterns and work stations are clearly labeled with easy-to-read signs. A lot of signs. We actually acquired a large automatic cutter-plotter which trims out text and pictures from sticky vinyl, for placement on coroplast sheets. It all looks really pretty and....
oops... Gross
**Note to self: "Close mouth when clearing throat"***
There, now that my monitor is wiped off, I can continue. Where was I? Oh yeah, homemade signs, on to the point of my story. We've had a guy from the production staff here in the office for a little while now, temporarily upgraded from packager to full time sign maker. This is by no means an official position though, and he's floated back and forth a bit. So yesterday the shipping manager comes into the office to steal him for a bit, he lost one of his guys with zero notice and needed someone to fill in with moving tubs into the warehouse from the yard. I overheard the conversation and thought about that job for a moment... these guys spend eight hours a day taking finished tubs from outside the packaging areas, tipping them onto a handcart, and walking them into the shipping warehouse. There they use a barcode gun to scan the tub into a storage bin, then they walk back out to the yard for another one. Walk, walk, walk, walk, non-stop. Boring. I don't think I could do that for eight hours, but I could easily do it for one. Oh, now it's sounding like an idea: Wait until my regular purchaser duties are over at 4:30, then go spend an hour walking on level ground in the fresh air, and get paid overtime rate just for getting some needed exercise. Suddenly I was waving my hand in the air and yelling "Ooo, ooo.. me! Pick me!" to the shipping manager. He looked at me like I was being facetious, but I assured him I really did want to. Now the deal's been made. I spent an hour out there yesterday and it worked out pretty well. And unless they suddenly find themselves with too many people and not enough tubs, (not likely), I'm welcome to come back every afternoon to put in an hour of paid calorie burnin. Oh happy day!

Sugar water

I usually make myself a cup of tea when I get into my office in the morning.... Typically some variation of Japanese green, such as with lemon & ginseng, or with roobios. Christine tells me that the proper method for making tea, (and I stress proper because last year she spent two weeks in Scotland drinking tea with her British Aunt), is to let the tea bag seep and then remove it before mixing in the sugar and/or cream. I couldn't be bothered, I throw in a cube of sugar and the tea bag at the same time and stir the whole works up. I've even been known to forget to take the bag out before I start to drink. Yeah, yeah.. I'm going to commoner's hell.
Anyways, the point of the story. This morning I poured some near-boiling water into my mug from the kettle, then sat done at my desk and dropped in the sugar cube. Before adding the tea bag though, I just stopped and watched the sugar at the bottom of the mug. It was really trippy. The hot water penetrated into the cube very quickly, filling the small gaps and forcing the air out in tiny bubbles. The color changed from solid white to a dull opaque silver. Then the walls started to crumble. Chunks of the sides dropped away like giant sheets of ice dropping off the edge of an ice cliff into the ocean. The crumbled remains would simply disappear shortly after hitting the bottom of the mug. Eventually the cube was whittled down to a small spherical core. That core fell over on it's side, then just disappeared as well.
So if anyone out there has never watched a sugar cube dissolve in hot water, I highly recommend it... I'm still recovering from the rush.

My tummy hurts

I went to the dentist yesterday, wanna see?

After about 6 years of just "not bothering", I finally called up the ol' dentist's office and made an appointment. There aren't any problems, I just figured I was overdue for a cleaning/polishing.
Things have changed in there... now they got this full panoramic x-ray machine. You stick your melon inside a clear plastic box, and the scanner rotates around you, it was pretty nifty. And those little chunks of sharp cardboard that they make you bite on for the up-close x-ray don't hurt like they used to. Inside the checkup area there was an entire wall covered in Polaroid pictures, all of sub-12-year-old kids, all grinning big toothy smiles, and each was labeled with their name and "No cavities!". Big deal. I was gonna ask to get my picture taken for the wall, I'd put all those woosie kids to shame... "Jeffrey, age 27, No Cavities, EVER!!"

Born again at level 40

I finally reached this anticipated milestone with my Paladin last night. Now in addition to being able to learn all kinds of new retribution and protection spells, I can equip Plate armor, and *giddy giggle*... summon a horsie. As far as I know, the Paladin is the only class that receives a free mount at level 40, all other classes have to save up and buy one... and they're really expensive. Finally, after weeks of plodding my slow human ass along behind other teammates, while they activate their "aspect of the cheetah" or some such thing, and burn off ahead of me... now I've got the real speed... +60% movement rate cross-country when riding Mr. Ed here.
Hahaahahaaa, eat my dust assholes!!

Everything I ever needed to know I learned in Kindergarten.

I wanted to send Christine an email that would cheer her up... and I couldn't think of anything to write at the moment, so I drew a picture on the computer. This is the two of us outside our little blue house on the hill, with Spike and Sam (the cats) playing in the grass.
She wanted to pin it up on the fridge, but the damn color printer is on the fritz. So I guess putting it up here is the next best thing.

Golly-gee... mathematics sure can be fun.

I was reading an online press release the other day, covering the unveiling of the 2006 C6 Corvette. The horsepower figures on the Z06 performance version are unreal…. 500 NET horsepower, from a small block engine that they somehow managed to squeeze 428 ci out of. If only dreams were money. At any rate, what really got me thinking while reading this article wasn’t the details on the Vette, but a quote from one of GM’s reps. He mentions that this latest incarnation of the tried and true pushrod V8 comes after 90 million predecessors. 90 Million small blocks produced since 1955; from the original 265 to the 400, and everything in between. This inspired some quick curiosity math on my part:
Given that a conservative figure for the dimension of a typical Chevy small block, from flywheel to water pump pulley, is about 27 inches... (Buick, Pontiac, and Olds were typically a bit longer) Now let’s say we were to take all 90,000,000 and line them up, end-to-end. We would wind up with a train of engines that would stretch approximately 61722 kms, or 1.54 times around the circumference of the earth. Or we could look at it this way: Assuming that GM engine production facilities had run continuously for the last 50 years, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week... that’s a new small block rolling out the door every 17.52 seconds.
Stay tuned all this week for more fun with math.

Someone once brought in a whole basket of those mini-muffins. It was the best day....

Just got off the phone with the sales rep from one of our major vendors.. he's on his way out to see me so that we can discuss some product changes. Just before we ended the conversation though, he says to me: "So, how many people do you have working in your area? I was gonna hit Tim Horton's on the way out and pick up some treats." I say, "Downstairs here? Um... about nine or ten of us." And he says "Alright, so three dozen donuts should do it."
So now I'm in full anticipation of multi-pastry sugar overload, when another bomb drops. I walk past the production supervisor's office, and there's a leaning tower of cases-o-pop on the floor. Turns out today is a pizza day. What's the occasion you ask? Nothin... shits n' giggles... keep the masses happy. And the icing on the cake: IT'S BEER DAY AGAIN!!!
I love Fridays.

The wheels are a-turnin.

I need some bamboo.
About four to six feet of 3" diameter, and another few feet of 1" or 2".
Then I need a half of a wooden staved barrel, and a cylindrical humidifier filter, and some old 70's style wooden salad bowls, and a tube of mildew-resistant silicone.
Oh, and some black mesh screen, and a piano hinge.
The cats are gonna love me.

Good thing he was prepared.

I doubt that this guy felt the cold at all during his 4-day ordeal:

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1261997.html

Woo-frickin-hoo!!

Beer day is here again, I can feel it...

I'll tell ya all about it tomorrow.

130/140

Beer day is here, rejoice.

I made it... all week... and I didn't even have to kill anyone.

I did think about it though, the killing I mean, several times.
Actually I'm thinking about it now.

Here we go again

Late last year I made a controlled power down of my average weekly alcohol consumption, I limited myself to weekend-only imbibement. Unfortunately, along came Christmas, then new years... weekend-only turned into "every damn day cuz I'm on vacation". I managed to maintain that flow (ha, pun intended) for almost a month... never really getting back to my earlier level of restraint, if you could call it that. Now it’s time to cut back again, and it pains me.
I genuinely like the taste of beer, its good stuff. I enjoy sampling different imported beers whenever the liquor store stocks something new. I’m not 17 anymore; I don’t set aside a portion of my pizza delivering tips for large quantities of the cheap crappy stuff, like “Olde English 40s”. I’m not just out to get falling down drunk at the upcoming Cherryville bush party.
The main reason for my need to cut back again is cost… having a few beer a night, plus a few extras on weekends, is roughly equivalent to the cost of a pack-a-day smoking habit. (Something I was lucky enough to break before the price went from 5 to 8 dollars a pack).
The second reason is Christine, she’s tired of seeing me sitting on my ass day after day while the empties accumulate on the kitchen counter… and I don’t blame her one bit. If she was a smoker I know I‘d be on her case, probably even more so. Instead she manages to balance the equation by lobbing the occasional estrogen-laden nag bomb at me.
If I wanted to be financially smart about this, I’d switch from beer to weed. I’m a pretty cheap stone, half a bowl and I’m done. 10 bucks worth lasts six months in my house… but it’s just not the same. Never have I concluded a big Sunday meal by retiring to the couch for an after-dinner reefer. But I can sit in front of my computer playing games, drink a few beers, get pleasantly relaxed, and be happy. Weed just makes me paranoid, giddy and hungry. Hence the only time I smoke it is on the odd weekend when I’ve already had a few.
Anyways, nuff said. Wish me luck now…. 62 hours dry and counting…. pushin along to mile marker 140. The little engine that could. “I think I can, I think I can.”

I just played WoW for 13 hours.. and boy is my ass tired.

Spencer and me, Night Elves, hanging out in Darkshore... That's him on the left, and my attack cat Spike on the right. This picture was taken earlier in the day, before I got my cool new armor.

10 mile walk to school... uphill both ways.

When I was a kid, my feet used to split and crack in the winter... eventually they healed. Now my knuckles split.... weird.

Where's my bike?

The inhabitants of Vancouver and Vancouver Island are whining because they have 2 inches of snow and overnight lows of -9..... this is my front porch.... woosies.

Severed

I'm at work now, and I'm bored.
I had plans this morning, stuff that needed to get done... things to see and people to do.
I've been denied my ambitions.
The S.A.P. system, the lifeblood of our production operation, is down for the count. Like all computer programs that operate in a Windows-based environment, it was doomed to occasional failure. I can accept that, and normally when it goes down I can keep busy with other tasks. But not today, today the external phone lines are down as well.
One or the other... no problem. Take them both away, and I'm playing solitaire.
I don't actually play solitaire on the computer, can't stand it... It's a boring little game for people who don't know what a computer does. Instead, I'm passing the time by dribbling out some worthless tripe on to my blog. Lucky you, you get to read it.
Okay... This post is turning kinda cranky, I'll stop now. Maybe I'll go stand around somewhere, talk to people and watch others work... experience an hour in the life of a production foreman.

Richard Simmons

Click here for a link to a clip from "Who's Line is it Anyways?"
..and get ready to cover your eyes..

The nerdiness continues...

Not too much to report today.
"Blah blah blah blah World of Warcraft blah blah blah blah blah blah World of Warcraft blah blah blah." **If this sounds about right, don't bother reading on.**
Spencer finally got his game up and running and we played a bit last night. We went at it for a while with him using a freshly created character, (a Night Elf Druid), teamed up with my veteran level 25 Human Paladin. It sucked. We thought that my high-level character could just run around an whack dangerous high-level enemies, while Spencer followed along and collected mondo experience for the kills, but the boys at Blizzard anticipated that little trick, and punished us accordingly. The experience points that resulted from our mismatched team were pathetic, not even worth the time. So instead we disbanded the team, and Spencer took on some moderately difficult enemies while I just sat back and healed him repeatedly... good experience for Spencer, boring as shit for me. So I started a new character, a Night Elf Hunter, and we adventured together for a while. I promised Spencer that I would solo with my Paladin, and only play the Hunter when we were both online together, that way I don't advance too quick for him to keep up. (I'm a geek and play way more often than he will.)
Unfortunately, I think I like the Hunter character better than my Paladin. So you'd better play every chance you get Watson, or I might just have to leave you in the dust. It takes time and devotion to reach the level of anti-social geekdom that I've managed to achieve for myself.

World of Warcraft

A picture is worth 1000 words. Well, here's a 4000 word essay entitled "Why I haven't had time to update my blog during the last week."

Fighting a Harvest Watcher.

Traveling by Gryphon.

At the gates of Ironforge.

Looking over Moonbrook.