Fungii.com

Eviction

Got a letter telling me I have to move out of my apartment soon. Too many loud parties, drunken hookers and I don't think my boa constrictor escaping into the heating ducts helped much either. Actually, they are making me homeless to help the homeless. No really, I don't get their logic either, but the Calgary Homeless Foundation bought my building, so they're kicking everybody out into the streets. How rude!

Computer Noise

My computer started making a horrendous racket last night and I was a little surprised it was still functional this morning. I unplugged everything, opened her up, blew the dust out and plugged her back in with the case open so I could track the source of the noise. It was the case fan, an easy fix with a quick trip to the computer store for a new unit. I guess it's been on its last legs for awhile now, my box is much quieter with the new fan installed. Yeah, a cheap fix. :)

Road Trip

Here's some pics I took looking out my windshield on my way to Banff. Maybe next time I'll actually stop and take some decent ones from the the great outdoors!

Pontiac Vibe

I was supposed to test drive a Pontiac Vibe today. But an hour before my appointment, the dealership called and told me that they had sold the car I wanted just the night before. They're supposed to get another similar car in on Tuesday, so I'm booked to go in then and give it another shot. What a drag, I was rather excited about having a car of my own after going about 10 fucking years without one. I wasn't planning on getting one so soon actually, but with GM's 0% interest financing promotion, I figured now was a good time. I would hate to buy one later and end up paying 5% interest over 4 years, that can really add up on a large purchase.

Oh yeah, the car I want is a 2006 Pontiac Vibe [same as a Toyota Matrix] Abyss black with a power package [power windows etc.], 5 speed manual, 7 speaker stereo and aluminum wheels. We'll see how much of that is in the vehicle they show me on Tuesday. I'm kind of nervous about taking the test drive with a standard as I haven't driven one in ages! Ha. Oh well, it should be interesting...

Generation Vibe
Matrix Owners

Hooked new hard drive up to DVD player

I picked up a 250 GB Maxtor hard-drive from Future Shop earlier this week, a great deal at $99. Then I got a VANTEC Nexstar 3 Aluminum 3.5" Enclosure to put it in. It was easy to install, just hooked up the IDE cable and the power supply and screwed it all back together. After hooking it up to my computer, I used the MaxBlast software to partition and format it as a FAT32 drive, which just took a couple minutes. Then I dumped about 20 GB of MP3 files on it and hooked it up to my DVD player via the USB cable. And it works!! Woohoo! I'm surprised I didn't run into any problems, everything went so smoothly. Now I gotta rip a bunch of my DVDs and stick them on this thing. I figure I can put all 7 Buffy seasons on it, which should run around 50 GB or less using XVid. That'll be so cool to have every episode available at a touch of a button.

I just wish I could implement some kind of DVD type menu for this thing. The menu system this player uses is crap. It only reads DOS 8.3 filenames, it doesn't read MP3 ID tags, no playlists, and it's kind of ugly and clunky. When you first start it up without a dvd in it, it read the USB port and the entire directory structure of the hard drive. It doesn't take very long, but I wonder how much room it has in ram to store all that info. If I fill up the entire 250 GB of hard drive space, it's going to have a hell of a lot of filenames to load. Heh, I guess I'll find out.

It's also very quiet - the enclosure doesn't have a fan, it just uses the aluminum case as a heat sink. And the hard drive itself is pretty damn quiet. I only wish my computer was this quiet!

Update: I appear to have discovered the file number limit - 3000 items. I'm going to have to figure out a way around that as I can load way more than 3000 files on a 250 GB drive.

Update2: I got rid of some files and restarted the hard drive with my dvd player. It still couldn't find my missing files! For some reason it couldn't read one of the directories, cause when I moved the files to a directory I knew it could read, the files were found, no probs! So there might not be a 3000 file limit after all. I'll have to do some experimenting to find out what the hell is going on.

My worries are over

She returned my hammer! 2:30pm Finally! I was going to call the cops on her dammit.

It's hammer time

It's 12:25pm and still no hammer. WTF! What kind of person borrows a man's hammer and doesn't return it? What is this world coming to? I checked what parking stall she was in [105] but when I knocked on her door, there was no answer. It's probably the wrong door anyway as that's where the resident manager usually lives and we don't have one right now. So I left a note on her car:

Dear neighbour,

Please return my hammer right now you fucking bitch or I'll bash in your head with my, my...

Aeiii! Just give me back my hammer, damn you!

Your pal,

Rich

Maybe I was a little too strong? I dunno. Maybe I shouldn't have signed it in blood?

Ralph bux

Yesterday, my “prosperity cheque” [$400!] came in the mail. Today, my healthcare premium bill came in the mail. [$132] Seems kind of stupid to me that they give money one day, then take it right back the very next day. I appreciate the idea of the cheques, that the massive amount of money the Alberta government has taken in over the last few years belongs to the Alberta populace so we would should share in the windfall. But healthcare premiums for the year [$520] will more than wipe that windfall, so it would seem to me that a moratorium on healthcare premiums for the year, more or less, would have been a more efficient way of giving us a break. Then again, I guess poor people don’t pay those premiums, so maybe this isn’t so bad. Although I hear it cost $10 million in administration costs to send all these cheques out there. Then again, Mr. Klein announced his plans for his “third way” approach to healthcare today, which is a euphemism for privatization. And this kinda pisses me off cause it’s really a copout, instead of dealing with the problems with healthcare, he’s basically trying to wash his hands of the whole thing and let every man fend for himself. Which means rich people get good healthcare, the rest of us get shit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against some experimentation with the system to find out what works and what doesn’t, but Ralph’s approach just seems naive and disingenuous. Like his electricity deregulation, which results in Albertans paying higher premiums so power companies can build more capacity to serve the American market, in an effort to build greater profits to line their own pockets. Anyway, it was nice to get the extra money, even if it was crass political ploy to distract us from his attempts at dismantling our public healthcare system.

The pain in my hand is insane man!

I played some Need For Speed Underground 2 last weekend and I had my joystick jammed into the palm of my hand while playing the game. The corner of the joystick is kinda hard and sharp, and this is what was poking into my palm as I played. I was stuck on this stupid race in Jackson Heights where you have to slide around all the time [I forgot what they're called] [Drift!] and I kept replaying over and over again. You need 175,000 points to win and I think the best I got was around 130,000 points. Anyway, my hand felt a little funny afterwards but I thought nothing of it. But later in the week [Wednesday?], I woke up in the middle of the night with a massive pain in my wrist. I thought I might have sprained my wrist at work somehow, although I didn't seem to have any swelling. The next day, I felt better and thought that was it, but then yesterday I took a nap after work and woke up to massive pain in my wrist again. After doing some research on the net, I came to the conclusion that I had some carpal tunnel syndrome thing happening. Holy shit, I heard people complain about how painful this condition can be, but never realized it was this bad! Damn, it really hurts! I put some ice on it last night and the pain eventually ebbed away, like around 3:00 am. I feel much better today, but I'm going to buy a bag of ice in case it comes back again tonight. I think riding my bike with my palms on the handlebars all day probably exacerbated the problem, so I'm going to stay off my bike this weekend as much as possible.

Normal Again

Oil Supply & Demand

Found this article about the supply and demand of the 'black gold' we all rely on so much in our modern world, very interesting. It's rather long but worth reading, especially in light of skyrocketing oil prices we're seeing. And I don't even own a car at the moment, but so much of our economy relies on cheap oil, I don't feel particularily smug in that regard. Not to mention I want to buy a car next year. A very small one methinks.

The London Bombings

Woke up this morning to my radio coming on and the first thing I heard was how the markets were falling because of the London bombings. I was like "London bombings, what? Shit!" Hopped out of bed and watched the story unfold on the BBC. Ugh, what a senseless waste. I know these terrorists' ultimate aim is to bring about the destruction of Western liberal democracy, but this is the city that survived WWII's "The Blitz" and the IRA's bombing campaign. Today's excapades sure as hell ain't gonna bring these hard-assed motherfuckers down. Try again, dickwads.

Yeah, I have a lot of admiration for Londoners, they kick ass. I wish them nothing but the best on what must be a pretty horrible day. :(

London Mayor Ken Livingstone: "This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at Presidents or Prime Ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter. ... In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential. They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don't want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail."

Pictures down by the Bow River

I took some pictures a couple of weeks ago down by the Bow River, after the second flood but before the last one. [I hope it's the last one!] But before I bore you with those, it's worth noting that Calgary not only broke its June record for rainfall, but the all-time record as well! It sucks to be number one, let me tell you.

Here's a picture looking down from the 14th Street Bridge into the muddy waters of the Bow River.

This is by the Eleventh Street Bridge. You can see in the lower right the railing for the bike path, almost under water.

Here's a closed pathway going under the bridge. I like how somebody spray-painted arrows on the path showing us what to do. Nice.

Here's a closer look at the railings.

Here's the bridge. There's like a measuring thing on one of the pilings, looks close to two meters. Two meters above the normal water level maybe?

Pathway Closed due to Unsafe Conditions

Down by Prince's Island Park. There used to be a small bridge here.

Prince's Island Park is flanked by the Bow River on one side and a little canal that branches off the Bow on the other. It's usually a narrow, shallow, placid little stream, but on this day it was like a raging river. The ducks and geese seemed fine with it though.

Those light poles should not be in the water.

Here's some trees in the park. They moved the Canada Day celebrations to McMahon Stadium this year, due to the flooding in this park, where it's usually held.

This is an area between the park and the river. There is a pathway underneath all that water that people like to ride on. Not today.

That's all I got for now. Maybe I'll load up some more tomorrow. :)

Flood Pictures

Found this collection of pictures of the Calgary flood - Sherlock77's photos. Good stuff.

Calgary Panorama

I made this panorama from four photos. At first I tried using Canon's Photostitch program but it turned out pretty blurry and some of the seams looked kinda weird. So I did it 'by hand' and it seems to have turned out pretty good. [except for an obvious seam to the right in the sky, which I think could be easily eliminated with a little tweaking] Anyway, I took a bunch of pictures out by the river today but it'll have to wait till tomorrow as it's late and I must get to sleep soon.

Down by the River

I took my camera with me to work on Thursday [while it was still sunny!] and took some pictures, although my battery went dead a little early so I didn't get very many. They're just places along the Bow River.

From the 14th Street Bridge, looking towards downtown. Looking very green. The Bow is usually not that muddy and it usually doesn't come up right against the greenery like that.


You can see how muddy the water is. Normally, it's much clearer.

The grass is sooo green! For most of the year, Calgary comes in various shades of brown.

Pedestrian/cyclist bridge over the Bow.

The 10th Street Bridge. I wonder how much higher the water is now from this view?

This is the Prince's Island pedestrian bridge going into downtown Calgary.

Memorial Drive, early in the morning. They shut this road down today because of flooding.

Another view of the Bow, looking fatter than usual.

Newsflash: More Rain

They were predicting heavy rain for yesterday, but I was pleasantly surprised when it hardly rained at all in the morning, just a light misting. It did rain for most of the afternoon, but it was only really heavy for about half an hour. Last night it rained a ton though, I think it said somewhere that Calgary got a 100mm of rain. And today was more of the same, but I don't mind, I don't have to go outside!

High River got flooded [again], there were golf-ball sized hail in Medicine Hat, tons of roads and highways were closed [if not washed out], funnel clouds touched down in Medicine Hat and Swift Current [doesn't that make them tornados?], but hey, I think today is the last day of rain for awhile.

Update: Wow, it looks like it's been pretty bad today. Many people in Calgary have had their basements flooded and some sewers have backed up. The pathways have been closed, Memorial Drive and parts of 14 Street have been shut down, the Bow River is as high as it's ever been, the Glenmore Dam is full and water is flowing over the top. The Mayor just declared a state of emergency for a bunch of communities along the Bow and about 2500 people face "mandatory evacuation". The Bow has crested at the bottom of the Centre Street bridge. [whatever that means, the bridge is huge, I can't see the river being that high up, unless it's that high near each end?] The rain is supposed to be completely over by midnight, but looking out the window, it's still coming down.

The Transcanada Highway is shut down west of the city and it looks like most roads west-southwest of Calgary are closed. I saw some pictures of Okotoks on TV, they're mega-flooded, the roads look more like rivers. Sundre is under a one-hour evacuation alert. Priddis might be evacuated because their dam can't hold the water back anymore. High River is letting people back in because the Highwood River has crested this morning already.

Freaky! I'll have to go for a bike ride tomorrow with my camera and see what this all looks like!

Neighbours from hell

Well, my hearing seems to be getting a little better today, but at this point I almost wish I was deaf.

There's this condo behind my building that sits empty. It has an alarm system. A very fucking loud alarm system. This alarm system has been blaring away since yesterday after work. I finally had enough and went over there to check out the situation. The front door is wired shut but you can see the alarm panel with all the lights lit up and a message indicating that it should "please power down for 5 seconds..." There is a real estate sign out front so I call the number on there. They say they'll leave a message for the agent to call me back. Half an hour later, no answer. I call again, leave another message. Half an hour later, I call back, pissed off, said I was going to call the police. Five minutes later, the agent calls me back. I explain the situation and she says she knows nothing about alarms and that it will have to wait until Monday. WTF?!! I hate people like that. I know how shut that alarm off, I'll bury an axe in that control panel and I'll bet it will STFU. She also informs me that the police had already been called about the situation earlier today. Anyway, she gives me a number of the "foreman" and says I should call him. At first I thought she was just trying to get rid of me, but there was somebody at that number and he said he would come check it out.

As I'm typing this, something is finally going on over there, as I can hear the fucking alarm twice as loud now because they opened a door or window. But it's still blaring away. Clueless bastards!

I just went out on my patio and asked the doofusses [doofi?] milling about out there what the hell was going on. They say they're waiting for somebody to come help them shut off the alarm. I can't believe how stupid some people can be. They install this alarm, it goes off and their response is to ignore it for two days. Then when they finally show up, they have no clue as to how to shut it down. This herd needs a little thinning.

It stopped!! Woohoo! It was funny, I could hear one of my neighbours screaming at them before they finally got it shut off. Fuckers deserved it, too.

Can you hear me now?

After yesterday's episode with my bike tire blowing up in my ear and my hearing still screwed up today as a result, I thought I would experiment with some sound samples to see how it looks on paper, or pixels as it were. It didn't seem to shed much light on the situation though.

I started by recording some sine waves, starting at 13 KHz and working my way up to 22 KHz in 1 KHz steps, with a modulation frequency of 10 Hz, and a duration of 2 seconds, with silent intervals of 2 seconds between waves. I recorded one for my left ear [the one that took the brunt of the exploding tire noise] and one for the right.

tones_left.mp3
tones_right.mp3

The fourth and last sine waves sounded kinda funny but after recording them twice and they came out the same way, well I guess it would have to do. Then I played them back on Winamp multiple times for each ear, deceasing the sound by 10% each time from 100% down to 10%. I was going to graph the results for comparison, but the results weren't really worth graphing.

First of all, the sound was a lot louder overall for my right ear than for my left. As I decreased the sound for my left ear, I heard all the tones relatively fine until about 40%, when I stopped hearing the tones after the sixth, yet I managed to hear the tenth! And I couldn't hear the first tone, which is very strange because that one always sounds the loudest of the bunch! Weird, I thought it would be a straight dropoff once you got above a certain frequency. Maybe my methodology is messed up though. LOL, yeah right! Anyway, at 30% I had roughly the same result except I couldn't make out the last wave like I could at 40%. At 20%, zilch, couldn't hear a damn thing. One of the problems with my recordings was that there is an audible click at the begining of some tones, which kind of gives away when a tone starts. I tried to get rid of these clicks with some filters but it didn't help much. Maybe I should persue that further. I could also try some different waves, rather than just sine waves.

I then tried the same experiment for my right ear. Not much to say. It was very loud at 100% and I heard everything fine until 30%. At 30%, I began to have a hard time hearing tone 4, one of the weird sounding ones, although I could still hear everything else. At 20%, I had problems with 4 again, as well as tone 8. At 10%, I made out the first three and the last three, but nothing in between. Just for kicks, I tried listening at 1%, but no dice, I couldn't make out anything.

So what did I learn from my little experiment? Not much, except that my left ear is messed up from that freaking noise while my right appears relatively unscathed. But I knew that already dammit! I will try this again over the weekend to see if my left ear makes any improvement. Hopefully it will eventually get close to being the same as my right. I might just flip the headphones around to test different ears rather than using seperate mp3's.

Useless details: I recorded the sounds using Adobe Audition, which was also used to generate the sine waves. My motherboard's onboard sound was used for playback, the usual Cmedia POS. My computer is hooked up to my old Sony receiver, an STR-AV650. Played back tones using an old pair of AKG "Silver"s, K-141. Sound was set to 100% in the OS [Win2K] and 50% on the receiver. The receiver puts out an earth-shattering 90 fucking-watts-per-channel at 8 ohmahas, but I guess that really doesn't matter as I was using the headphone jack. See, I told you this info was useless.

Rain-induced Insomnia

Argh, I can't sleep. I can hear the rain coming down outside, I hope it ends before I have to go back to work tomorrow. Er, today that is. Looks like the Highwood River has flooded over and communities in High River are being evacuated. Glad I live on the side of a hill, far from any body of water. On the third floor. I think I'm safe as long as it doesn't come in from the roof like last year.

It was snowing in some places towards the mountains today as well. I'm not surprised, it was pretty cold out today at times. And they have the floodgates wide open on the Glenmore dam. [Calgary's main water supply is the Glenmore reservoir] If the water rises another 1.2 meters it's going to go over the dam. [I don't think that would be good]

Water water everywhere and yet none to take a damn shower with

It started raining today around noon and just kept getting worse and worse right till the end of the day. And of course I was mega-busy, didn't get home till around 5:30, at which time all I wanted to do was hop in a hot shower and scrape all this mud off my body. But when I got to my front door, there was a note there informing me that the City had decided to turn off our water today [of all days] without any prior fucking notice. They're digging up the road in front of my building, fixing pipes I guess. So I'm stuck with this dirt on me, I have no water set aside for drinking or brushing my teeth or anything, and I have no idea when they are going to turn the water back on. And I feel fine.

2004 Taxes

Just finished doing my taxes for last year. Being self-employed, I owe a bunch, as per usual. About what I expected, although I was hoping it would be less. I thought they were giving us poor people a break?? Bastards. I figure I can pay it off in 3 or 4 months, if I can continue to make what I am now. I've got to do my month-end billing as well. My weekends rock I tell you! :(

Knock Three Times

They whack the pope three times in the head to see if he's still alive? LOL!
The Pope's death is officially determined by the Cardinal Chamberlain by gently tapping the late Pope's head thrice with a silver hammer and calling his birth name three times. A doctor may or may not have already determined that the Pope had passed away. The Cardinal Chamberlain then retrieves the Fisherman's Ring. Usually the ring is on the Pope's right hand. But with Paul VI, he had stopped wearing the ring during the last years of his reign, and left it in his desk. In other cases the ring might have been removed for medical reasons. The Chamberlain cuts the ring in two in the presence of the Cardinals. The deceased Pope's seals are defaced, to keep the Pope's seal from ever being used again, and his personal apartment is sealed.

Can I help you?

The cord for the ir sensor that goes with my Hauppauge PVR-250 is too short. When I try to use the remote, half the time nothing happens because the signal can't reach the sensor. So I went to Radio Shack to get an extension cord so I could reposition the sensor to a more favorable location. I'm sure I could have found the hardware myself just fine, but this store employee came over and insisted on helping me. I told him what I needed, an extension cord for a 2.5 mm stereo mini-plug. He informed me they didn't have extension cords of that size, only cords with the 3.5 mm jacks. "Fine, give me two adapters for each end on one of those. I already have one at home." He went through the rack and handed me one for one end. I checked it out and it was the correct adapter. He came up with another one and for some reason I trusted him to have the right one. Doh! I guess I was just a little anxious to get home. Anyway, I get home and pull out the adapter and it's a stereo to MONO adapter! Totally useless to me. The funny thing is, I must have mentioned to him about five times that it was a stereo plug that I was using. Stereo, stereo, stereo! I wish people weren't so goddamn helpful.

Coma

Yesterday, I was supposed to do my billing but I was feeling a little tired so I thought I would take a little nap first. Woke up at 4:30am. Some nap! Too late to do billing, so I have to do it today for sure. I must have been really tired. I usually sleep in a lot on the weekends, but I didn't this weekend cause I had so much stuff to do. Guess that lack of sleep thing catches up to you eventually.

Too poor for pizza

There's this pizza joint downtown where I usually go for lunch, it's one of those places where you can get pizza by the slice. I was getting a slice of pepperoni and a coke for $3 but I didn't quite have enough, [yes, I'm poor] so I decided to use my bank card. I'm waiting for the transaction approved go ahead, but instead I get the insufficient funds take down. For three fucking bucks man. How embarissing. I managed to scrape together $2.90 and they let the dime slide till the next day. I really thought I had a little bit of money in there, at least enough for a slice of pizza dammit. Then it dawns on me. Bank charges. They always take out those damn bank charges right at the end of the month, right when I have like no money. The bank charges sucked out enough cash to make my rent cheque bigger than funds available, but luckily for me, they didn't bounce it. I really must keep more money in that fucking thing.

Flooded

My apartment's been flooded. Water has come in somehow from the roof, I think. They had some roofer guy come in and patch the roof, but the water is still seeping in. Maybe they didn't get rid of any standing water? The carpet in my computer area is totally soaked, but it didn't come near my computer, thankfully. My storage room has water damage as well. I have to pull all the stuff out of there, see how much stuff is ruined. I'll probably have to move. The carpet will definately have to be replaced, it smells really bad. I would think they would have to rip out all the drywall as well, this water must have got in here from between the walls. I'm not the only one, people on the fourth floor and the first floor also have the same problem. Who knows, maybe they'll have to kick everybody out of the whole building and renovate all the apartments. This sucks, I was rather happy here. I hope they refund my rent and damage deposit. My summer is ruined. :(

Catching up

Haven't been blogging much lately, been kinda busy. And pissed off about the whole Rogers thing. They still haven't sent me my "proof of activation", which I need to get the rebates on my Blackberry. And it needs to be sent in by July 31. The help desk dweeb told me I would get it in 4 days, here it is 10 days later and no sign of the damn thing. Got my first phone bill nice and quick tho. Fuckers.

Other than that, I've got some new toys. Got a Gameboy SP classic, it kinda looks like the original NES, retro chic. I bought Super Mario 3 to go with it, ran home to check it out, opened the box, pulled out the instruction manuals, a piece of cardboard and... no game!!! Was I ever mad. I rode all the way back to the Future Shop and told them what happened. They seemed to doubt me at first [the bastards!], but finally relented and gave me my damn game. By the time I got home, the thrill of getting a new system had worn off a bit. I am up to the sixth world so far, it's a great game, one of my favourites. Used to have it on the NES, loaned it out to someone and never got it back.

I also got an MP3 player, an RCA Lyra. It seems ok. It only came with 64 megs of memory, but it has a slot for SD ram, so I'll just buy a memory card later, it's cheaper than springing for the model with more built in ram.

I also picked up Kill Bill vol. 1. Cool half-a-movie. Not enough spurting blood for my taste tho, QT is getting soft in his old age. Speaking of gratuitous gore, saw Cabin Fever on the weekend. It was ok, lots of people spewing blood. A little on the predictable side, a bunch of kids get sick, die horribly, the end. Doesn't really build up to any kind of climax. On the other hand, I saw Wrong Turn as well and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. I was only checking it out because it had Eliza Dushku in it. I had no idea it was a gory, slasher flick. Stan Winston did the make-up effects and they're great. I found it a lot more entertaining than Cabin Fever, although CB wasn't half-bad. I also saw Pirates of the Caribbean [pretty good] and X-men 2 [very good as well]. And the Mangler 2 [very very bad, and silly].

Also got Metroid Prime for my Gamecube. Haven't played it much, been too wired on Super Mario 3.

BC Governor?

Fox news reports that Vancouver vies to become 'Vansterdam'.

"Vancouver's mayor not only wants to legalize marijuana but wants the governor to grow, sell and tax it to keep it out of the hands of criminals and to raise money for drug treatment programs."

Hic!

I had the hiccups for about four hours today! Drove me crazy, had them for a couple hours, they went away for awhile, then they came back again. Ugh! It's tiring having your torso involuntarily contract every 7 seconds. Now I feel all dizzy and drained. At least they did stop, once I had the hiccups for two weeks. That was brutal, especially when you try to sleep at night. Went to the doctor, she said "It's just the hiccups, they'll go away after awhile!" Thanks, that's why I never go to the doctor, they do nothing but state the obvious. I read somewhere hiccups are caused by a brain infection. Really. Tried all the cures known to man during those two weeks, none worked. Eventually they just stopped.

Saturday: Day of Sloth

Slept in till noon today, sat around reading Quicksilver for awhile [I'm on page 200, woohoo, I should have this book finished by the turn of the century!], no food, went to seven11 for junk food, milk 'n eggies. Ate said junk food, felt sleepy, took a nap. Yes, a very lazy day. But hey, I just finished doing the dishes and I made bread in ye ole bread-making machine, so the day wasn't a total loss.

Flames Girls Gone Wild

I really must run down to 17th Ave. the next time the Flames play. ;)

Toiling in the salt mines

Got a new account this week, it seems to be working out well. Wasn't sure if I would be able to handle their bank deposit as I already do a bunch of deposits every day and they all go out at about the same time, right before the banks close. But I managed to get them all done on time, yea for me.

The movie people called me on Wednesday, trying to get me to do background on some TV movie about Michael Jackson. They called me at 11:30am and wanted me for 1:30pm, just two hours notice! I had to decline, as I just got this new account and I didn't want to bail on them the very first week out. The talent agent chick was saying they had been doing a lot of westerns and period movies that my 'look' just wasn't suited for, but I'd be perfect for this 1980's era Michael Jackson flick! Eeek! Thanks, I guess. At least they still have my name in their files, maybe they'll give me a little more notice next time.

It rained cats and dogs on Thursday, I got soaked. Came home drained, slept many hours. It was supposed to rain even more yesterday, but it didn't and I was so happy. Though, my shoes were still soggy so I tramped around with wet feet all day. Ugh. Today it's raining again, but I don't have to go outside, haha. Not sure what I'm going to do, play some Tropico perhaps.

Paltrow gives birth to a baby Apple

Freaky!

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The sandman has moved in to stay

Ever have days when you do nothing but sleep? Yesterday was like that for me. I think I woke up at 1:00 o'clock in the afternoon. Watched a movie on TV, "The Italian Job", which was alright for a 1960's era British heist movie with Micheal Caine [and Benny Hill!], although the ending was kinda silly. Ate some food... then dozed off again! I don't know what's the matter with me. I always think I'll get so much accomplished on weekends, then I end up getting nothing done, doing nothing. I must be getting narcolepsy or procrastinationitis.

Bertuzzi suspended for rest of year

The NHL has suspended Bertuzzi for rest of season, including the playoffs. Seems about right, Moore isn't going to be playing in the playoffs, Bertuzzi shouldn't either.

The league said his future status for next year's season will be determined by Commissioner Gary Bettman prior to the start of training camp.

I wonder if they're going to make him take anger management courses? Some people were calling for a full year's suspension, but I think this is harsh enough. Missing the playoffs this year when Vancouver has [had] such a good chance at the cup is pretty severe, as far as these things go. If Vancouver doesn't go anywhere in the post season, they'll probably blame it on him. And there might not be any hockey next year, so he might not be playing for a long time anyhow, making this suspension that much more painful. Plus the police are probably going to charge him for assault. Altogether Todd Bertuzzi's life has been turned upside-down and that should be punishment enough.

Freeze!

I was on my way home the other day and I came across this commotion. It was kind of interesting, this big cop with a shotgun would point his gun at the ground but when he came to the alley, he would raise it up and aim it down the alley. Then when he got to the other side, he would point it back down to the ground. Just like on TV! I didn't have time to stay around and see who got shot, but the body count couldn't have been too high, they didn't even mention it on the news.

My Long Weekend

It snowed on Saturday. Hopefully it will all be gone by the time I go to work tomorrow. Tried to fixed my bike this weekend. The rear brake is still seized, I oiled it, didn't help. Front brakes only again tomorrow. :( Finished reading C by Example, now I have to use that knowledge before it all seeps out of my brain again. Good beginner's book if you've never done programming before, explains things very, very simply, no long, extended, complex examples. Learned about malloc() and free(), pointers, structures, reading and writing structures to files, all that good stuff. Watched a couple movies this weekend, Daredevil [ok, Jennifer Garner makes it worthwile] and May [very weird, poking your eye's out weird]. Played around with the Perl module ImageMagick, pretty cool once you figure out how to make it work. I'm just using it to make thumbnails, but it looks like you can do all kinds of image manipulations with it.

Toys in the Attic

There's crazy, and then there's really crazy. I would sentence him to eat himself alive.

Mr Meiwes, a 42-year-old computer expert, admits killing and then eating another man three years ago, after placing an advert on the internet.

Mischievous Dar Dar

It's hard not to follow the Dar Heatherington story, it's like something out of Jerry Springer, but funnier. Although I do have some sympathy for her predicament, you have to wonder how much longer she can maintain this facade of the stalking victim. I mean come on, she got nailed red-handed with her abduction story down in Montana, now she expects us to believe her preposterous story of this stalker when all the evidence points to her making this crap up. Even if her lawyer managed to exclude the evidence her husband handed over, the information is already out there, the public knows the story. Yet she still holds her head high and proclaims her innocence. Eek! I would hate to be her. You would think at some point she would see the writing on the wall, cop a plea and cower away from the public eye. But no, her pride won't let her, to do that would mean she would be admitting her guilt, and all the embaressment that goes with it. So every day, she keeps a stiff upper lip, and digs her hole a little deeper. I hope they put her on the stand, I'm sure she would spaz out something fierce. If you've heard her rants at Lethbridge city hall, you know what I'm talking about.

"There was a hysterical woman on the other end (of the phone) and I recognized the voice as being Dar Heatherington and my heart sank to my stomach," James testified.

She's wacky, a few cards short of a deck, off her rocker. I know I shouldn't make fun of her, but hey, she's put herself in this position for the whole world to see. And her husband, I don't know what to make of him. He's stood by her through all this, and yet he's the one handing over evidence to the police! It's like some weird master/slave relationship. That's my theory anyways.

"My gut tells me that there is something going on here that she is protecting me from," he told police Sgt. Darcie James on a police tape played for court. "There are changes in our sex life that I hadn't expected. I wonder if she's fooling around," he said.

I wonder if she isn't a complete fucking psycho! Here's a bunch of background stories on the whole sordid affair. I smell a TV movie!

Earache, my eye!

A massive chinook rolled in yesterday, with a high of 7° for today. It was really nice out, like summer! Yesterday, at work, I started to get a headache, because of the chinook I guess. By the time I got off work, my head was really pounding. So I took some Tylenol and it seemed to be gone, but when I woke up this morning it was back big time. Took more Tylenol, went back to sleep. I think it's over now. I hate that.

Mmmmm dioxins

Farm-raised salmon contain higher levels of potentially cancer-causing pollutants and dioxins than wild salmon, but that doesn't mean they aren't safe to eat.
Really.

Trying out for Jackass 2?

Steve Irwin, aka the crocodile hunter, makes an early bid for idiot of the year.

"Steve is very upset he would be compared to Michael Jackson in any way, just as any dad would be," he said.

Merry Christmas!

That's the Christmas spirit!

A former caregiver will serve two years in federal prison for swindling a dying priest out of a $350,000 life insurance annuity, then gambling it away at casinos.

"Hey Herman, how's it going? Are you still a Nazi?" he said to Herman Baurer, who helped care for Father Paul Zeller as colon cancer killed him.

Arianna

And I worry about having food stuck in my teeth.

Work Sleep Work

Haven't been doing much lately, work has been crazy busy. I've been coming home and basically falling asleep in front of the TV. Lazy bastard that I am. Went for drinks [and nachos!] with the Goodwin McKay people after work today. That was cool. Came home, watched the Flames play a crappy game and yet still beat the Oilers. [ha] Last Friday, I went out with my oldest sister Joanne and her husband [Jim] and her daughter [my niece] Arianna, for dinner at Jack Aster's. I had chicken fajitas, which were good once I figured out where they hid the wraps. Tomorrow I only work half a day and then I get a whole four days off! Yea for me!

Flames win

I just popped onto NHL.com to check the score for the Flames-Bruins game, as it's not on TV tonight, and holy shit, they won 5-0 with McLennan getting the shutout! That puts them one point behind the Avs and four points behind the Canucks, who have played two more games than the Flames. Wicked. I thought they'd be better this year, but I never thought they'd be this good. I just hope they can maintain this pace for the rest of the season and at least make the playoffs. Which they haven't done for what, seven years? It would be nice.

The Flames last shutout the Bruins in 1976, when they were the Atlanta Flames, 9-0.

And another

Bow River at Sunset

Indian Summer

Holy crap, today's forecast high is +8° Celsius! Scorching! And it's sunny, too, no chinook clouds. Weird.

Ouch!

That's gotta hurt!

Saturday Morning Weather

It's -23° out there. Brrrr!

Birthday Boy

Yep, today was my birthday. Woohoo, yay for me! Thanks to everybody who wished me a happy birthday. There have been some years when nobody knew it was my birthday, so I didn't get any well wishes. Which ain't no big deal but it's kinda nice when at least one person comes up to you and says "hey, happy birthday dude". So thanks guys. And gals. ;)

We have assumed control

Canada has absorbed Alaska. Really! Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlottes have merged into the mainland as well.

"It's not a map of Canada, it's a piece of art," Mr. Tallis said. "And it's not just Canada, it's essentially north of the 49th. Let's be clear, that this is not a map for people to find their way around the country. That's not the intent of it."

Huh? Yeah, whatever.

Sleeping Florida Boy Has 4 Fingers Gnawed Off By Family Dog

Fingers found in dog's stomach.

"I'll be OK. I can still play video games with one hand," he said.

Man steals ID of sex offender

A man convicted of drunk driving offences decides to steal the identity of his next door neighbour to get his driving license. Little known to him, his neighbour is a sex offender, hilarity ensues.

Pictures

The first two pics are of the lion sitting in front of city hall. There used to a couple lions on the Centre Street bridge that dated from 1916. They were showing their age, so the city had them removed and replaced when they renovated the bridge last year[?]. They repaired this one and stuck it in front of city hall. I'm not sure but I think the other one is still in storage somewhere. I like this lion, it's a lot nicer than many of the sculptures in front of buildings downtown. Most are big, abstract turds.

The big ribbon is in Banker's Hall and is part of a fundraiser for breast cancer. It's huge! If this was an Omen movie, that big pin would fall out and impale a priest to the floor. Unfortunately, no such spectacle was observed. Yet. I'm still hoping.

wait a second, it may not be a part of the show

Roy Horn of 'Siegfried & Roy' was attacked by a white tiger during a performance in Las Vegas and is in critical condition. Weird, they've been doing this show for 30 years with no problems. And it was his 59th birthday. Bummer.

"Everyone there I think , thought it was part of the act, because no one really freaked out," Kirk Baser said. "When it grabbed him and dragged him off the stage, I thought maybe it was like some magic trick where they switch a rag doll or something."

Wanking Neighbour

One of my neighbours posted this on the wall in the hall of my apartment building. Funny, he puts it up on the wall for everyone to see rather than talking to the manager or confronting the person directly. Lamer. I did get get a good laugh out of it tho. She must be loud for him to hear her, this is a concrete building, and I very rarely hear my neighbours at all unless they are out in the hall talking. I play music and movies quite loud on my main stereo system and I never get any complaints. Maybe I just can't hear them. Ha. Or maybe they're all big Sepultura fans.

Oh, and the picture [in case you can't make it out] is of a guy smashing a guitar against the wall. In case she can't read I suppose.

Co-worker of bank-robbing pizza man found dead

Sometimes a headline just begs you to read the story to find out what the hell they're talking about.

Fox News has an update on this story. Somebody forced him to rob a bank and then blew his head up? WTF?

Straddle the toilet, squat down

This is just plain weird. [link uses sound] I wonder why they have toilets like that? Some kind of leftover from the middle ages maybe. I was hoping it would be a little more graphic to tell you the truth. Hey, they forgot to tell the little white boy to puuuuush.

Got my Power Amp Back

I finally got my power amp back from the shop last night. It took them three months to swap out a defective switch. Three months! Crazy, I should have just done it myself. And this is the same guy who does their warranty work. I'm not sure I want to buy anything from them if it takes that long to get things fixed.

Anyway, I thought I'd watch a DVD last night now that I have surroundsound back again, even though it's just plain old Pro-Logic. [I need a new preamp] So I started watching Star Wars Clone Wars. Wow, it seemed even crappier on second viewing. The dialogue is so stilted, the acting is atrocious and there ain't much of a story. Ewen McGregor [sp?] was pretty good, tho. And the sets are pretty impressive. But it got too boring halfway through and I stopped it. Oh, and the sound was good too, except for the score. God, is that John Williams? Can't he ever come up with something different? It all sounds the same, very predictable, boring shit.

Quicksilver

Neal Stephenson's new book, Quicksilver, is coming out this month. [September?] Can't wait, I loved Cryptonomicon. Wired has a short interview with him. Looks like it's going to be a trilogy, with new instalments coming every six months. Wow, that's ambitious. I wonder if he started writing one novel and it turned into three?

Amazon has it listed for September 11, 2003. And it clocks in at a whopping 944 pages. Woohoo!

I am cursed

I go outside, it rains. I come inside, it's sunny and warm now.

Grasshopper

This is a grasshopper. Yes, it is. That is all.

Another Sniper?

Looks like there's another sniper on the loose. Wonder how long it will take to get this bozo[s]?

He said his agency is receiving assistance from some of the investigators in last year's sniper attacks in the Washington, D.C., area, and those investigators are "giving us some good advice that we're following."

Stop writing that book Moose-man, we need you!

Witnesses saw the dark-colored truck at the Go-Mart where Meadows was killed. One witness -- a woman talking on a pay phone a few feet away from where Meadows stood -- told police she saw a black pickup truck with an extended cab and gold trim.
Witnesses are certain about the pickup truck because they saw it lingering outside the convenience store a full 20 minutes before the third killing. The only description of the driver is that he is an overweight white male.

That probably means it's a thin, Hispanic woman driving a Mini Cooper.

Freaky Elevator Accident

As someone who spends half my day in and out of elevators, I found this story a little freaky. I ain't holding the door for nobody, dammit.

Nikaidoh, 35, of Dallas, was stepping into a second-floor elevator about 9:30 a.m. Saturday when the doors suddenly closed, pinning his shoulders. His head was severed when the elevator car moved upward. A female hospital employee witnessed the accident and spent about 20 minutes trapped inside the malfunctioning elevator until firefighters were able to rescue her.

Meanwhile, We have West Nile in Calgary

The dreaded West Nile disease has made its way to Calgary. Finally! We felt real left out there, is our blood not tasty enough or what. And the government's response is to launch an education program urging us to wear light coloured long-sleeved shirts and DEET bug repellant. Rather than trying to kill the little buggers spreading the disease. This is going to come back & bite them in the ass [ha] if anybody is unlucky enough to die from this disease in Alberta. Meanwhile, I saw a poll result that showed roughly 90% of Albertans are doing absolutely nothing different to avoid catching West Nile. So much for the $2 million education campaign.

Vancouver Outbreak

Seven people died of a SARS-like disease in Vancouver. Great, just great! Ok, it's probably not SARS, it just kills people like SARS. How comforting!

European Heat Wave

French officials estimate that as many as 3000 people may have died in this summer's heat wave. Holy shit, that's a lot of people!

I smelled an odour in the street the other day and I'm sure it's an elderly person decomposing.

Power Blackout

Today a major blackout occured in Eastern Canada and the US. New York, Detroit, Toronto and Ottowa went down. Not a terrorist thing, just some power grid glitch. Some people got stuck in elevators. That happened to me once, it took 45 minutes to get me out. The thing is about those elevators, there ain't no secret escape hatch in the ceiling like in the movies. If it stalls between floors, get comfortable cause you ain't going nowhere. I didn't scream tho like some people were doing today, apparently. Or have a baby. I was just stuck in there all alone.

Wonder if they'll have anything about this on The Restaurant? Fuck I'm shallow.

Night Sky

Heckel and Jeckel on acid

Saw this painting in a store window in Banker's Hall.

Free Burgers!

On August 22, McDonald's Canada is giving away free burger coupons when you buy a burger. It's a promo for their conversion to 100% Canadian beef in support of Canadian farmers devastated by the Mad Cow disaster. So much for the stories of McDonald's beef coming from starving, disease-infested cows in Africa living on dead children. Where's the fun in that?

And this one time, my cat sat on my keyboard...

I cleaned up my apartment on the weekend, then sat around for most of the rest of the long weekend. Saw Brotherhood of the Wolf on TV on Sunday, not bad but reading sub-titles for two and a half hours gave me a headache. Literally. I took a bunch of Tylenol that didn't seem to work so I tried drinking some booze and that helped, my headache disappeared but then I couldn't sleep. So I stayed up all night watching Buffy dvds. I think I watched about five or six of them that night, including Hush, definately one of the best episodes ever. I'm almost finished season four, two dvds left. Monday I woke up late and a little hung over, wanted to do shit but had zero energy so basically did nothing. Today, worked, it was busy in the morning but died out in the afternoon. Saw John, my old dispatcher, on the way home. [Hey John!] He filled me in on what he's been up to for the last five years, in detail. The sun was setting as I broke away to go home, him following me, bellowing 'but wait, there's more!' [he he, just kidding man] Made it home, ate some dinner, watched MI-5 [kinda sucked] and part of Big Brother. [Robert did not use the vito, Aly is still a bitch, Nate is gay] Hey, next week's MI-5 has Giles on it. I think he trains the secret agents how to hone in on terrorists. If this massive run-on sentency thing makes no sense to you, don't worry there wont be a test. Or even a quiz. Sweet dreams.

Equifax

Today I got a rejection from a credit card company for a card but I'm not really upset about it because I think I know why. But I think I will check with Equifax online just to make sure my credit is ok. I fill out the form and it kicks me to a page with a phone number it wants me to call. It wont let me do anything else on their website until I call this number so I break down and call it. When I finally get through their damn voicemail system, the lady at the other end tries to bring up my info, but her computer freezes and she has to reboot. After awhile she informs me that my phone number in on a banned list or some such thing. I'm like what? This my phone, what do you mean its banned? She said it's because it's a cell phone and I can't access their website unless I give them a land-line number instead. I don't have a land-line so I guess that means I'm fucked.

So she gives me a number I can call to get a credit report mailed to me. I call the number, it's one of those automated things and for some reason it never offers me the option of getting my report mailed to me. Then it says goodbye and hangs up on me.

I think Charles Starkweather had a day like this once.

Anyway, I found an address where you can send away to get a credit report on yourself for free, so I'm doing that instead.

Cool Dude

I came across this picture on the net today and it just cracked me up. [yes, I'm easily amused]
Make him go away.
Bring him back.

Norway's mystery man

the man they have nicknamed "Dodo"

They better hope he doesn't turn out to be a secret agent, cause he's gonna kick their asses. Jesus Christ, haven't they seen The Bourne Identity?

well, that's Laurina

"Here's a mother who by all accounts was a decent mother, kills her child and then consumes her. Doesn't that sound like mentally ill to you?"

Hey, you convinced me.

Aune said she believed the act of cannibalism would help her remember her daughter. Could really have used some Grey Poupon though.

Canada Post workers might use Segways

Sounds kinda cool.

Hunting Bambis

This has got to be one of the strangest things I've ever heard of, next to those people who pay to get kidnapped off the street. Hunting naked women out in the desert with paintball guns? I've done the paintball thing before and it was fun, but the other side got to shoot back. This is just fucking bent. And paying $5000 to $10,000 to do this? The money would be better spent on therapy.

Update: Most likely just a publicity stunt to sell videos. Everything on the internet is a lie. And that's the truth.

Weekend

What a shitty weekend I've had. As if it wasn't bad enough that it rained most of the time, I also had a bad case of narcolepsy and slept away most of my precious time off. And when I wasn't sleeping, I had this wicked headache, a brain tumor most likely.

Did watch a few movies tho. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which was ok but not as good as the first one, IMNSHO. Gosford Park, dreadfully boring. And The Bourne Identity, pretty good spy flick, much better than Spy Games or that turd, The Sum of All Fears.

Now the weekend's pretty well over, drag. Wish it was Friday night instead. Hopefully it will stop raining tomorrow. It's been raining since last Thursday and I'm sick of it already. This morning they were talking about it snowing in a lot of places. This is summer?

Spot the goomba

Yeah, that's me. Just thought this would be a cool picture to take. 1000-9 Avenue SW

Power Amp

My power amp's switch finally stopped working so I brought it in to get fixed. I used to be able to flick it back and forth a few times to get it to work, but it slowly got worse and worse. I think I was flicking that damn thing like a hundred times [literally] whenever I wanted to fire it up to listen to music or watch a movie. Hope it doesn't cost too much, I'm broke. The stereo people said it might take 2 or 3 weeks before it comes back. Bleh!

Jokes

Thanks Jill!

SOMETHING TO OFFEND EVERYONE

What do you call two Mexicans playing basketball?
Juan on Juan.

What is a Yankee?
The same as a quickie, but a guy can do it alone.

What is the difference between a Harley and a Hoover?
The position of the dirt bag.

Why is divorce so expensive?
Because it's worth it.

What do you see when the Pillsbury Dough Boy bends over?
Doughnuts.

Why is air a lot like sex?
Because it's no big deal unless you're not getting any.


SOMETHING TO OFFEND EVERYONE PART II (JUST WARMING UP!)

What do you call a smart blonde?
A golden retriever.

What do attorneys use for birth control?
Their personalities.

What's the difference between a girlfriend and wife?
45 lbs.

What's the difference between a boyfriend and husband?
45 minutes.

What's the fastest way to a man's heart?
Through his chest with a sharp knife.

Why do men want to marry virgins?
They can't stand criticism.

Why is it so hard for women to find men that are sensitive, caring,
and good-looking?
Because those men already have boyfriends.

What's the difference between a new husband and a new dog?
After a year, the dog is still excited to see you.

What makes men chase women they have no intention of marrying?
The same urge that makes dogs chase cars they have no intention of
driving.

Why don't bunnies make noise when they have sex?
Because they have cotton balls.

What's the difference between a porcupine and BMW?
A porcupine has the pricks on the outside.

What did the blonde say when she found out she was pregnant?
"Are you sure it's mine?"

Why does Mike Tyson cry during sex?
Mace will do that to you.

Why did O. J. Simpson want to move to West Virginia?
Everyone has the same DNA.

Why do men find it difficult to make eye contact?
Breasts don't have eyes.

Did you hear about the dyslexic Rabbi?
He walks around saying "Yo."

Why do drivers' education classes in redneck schools use the car only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays?
Because on Tuesday and Thursday, the Sex Ed class uses it.


SOMETHING TO OFFEND EVERYONE, PART III (Just great Stuff)

Where does an Irish family go on vacation?
A different bar.

Did you hear about the Chinese couple that had a retarded baby?
They named him "Sum Ting Wong"

What would you call it when an Italian has one arm shorter than the
other?
A speech impediment.

What does it mean when the flag at the Post Office is flying at
half-mast?
They're hiring.

What's the difference between a southern zoo and a northern zoo?
A southern zoo has a description of the animal on the front of the
cage along with... "a recipe."

How do you get a sweet little 80-year-old lady to say the F word?
Get another sweet little 80-year-old lady to yell *BINGO*!

What's the difference between a northern fairytale and a southern
fairytale?
A northern fairytale begins "Once upon a time..." A southern fairytale
begins "Y'all ain't gonna believe this shit..."

Why is there no Disneyland in China?
No one' s tall enough to go on the good rides.

Hot

Holy shit it was hot today! 28º C

Free Food

When I came home today, I was checking my empty fucking mail box when one of my neighbours came out and asked if I wanted all the food in his fridge. After looking at him like 'oh yeah, I'm gonna fall for that one', I said sure and I got a bunch a food from him. It's probably laced with cyanide or something. Or he spit in it. It's all unopened, but I think there's a way to open shit and reseal them after you spit in them. I think he's moving far away and he's selling all his wordly possesions. Or maybe he joined one of those weird cults where you can't own anything. Not even your clothes, you have to run out into a field naked and burn them all. Or maybe he's a terrorist and he's dumpimg all his shit before heading out on his mission. After all, you can't take any of your shit with you on your way to valhallastan or wherever they go after blowing up blaspheming infidels.

Holy shit, what did they put in my Big Gulp???

7•11

So I go to 7-eleven to get a Big Gulp™ refill [1.3 liters] and the sign says up to 1.3 liters 89¢ | over 1.3 liters $1.19. Now since my 1.3 liter cup is certainly not over 1.3 liters, then I should get the refill for 89¢, right? Well the guy at the counter rings it up as 89¢, but then says I should have charged you $1.19. I'm like WTF? I point out to him what the sign says and he hums and haws and says just have a nice day blah blah blah. I don't mind paying more, but if they want to charge more, they should change the fucking sign.

Needless to say, they are all dead.

Waiting for ever

Today I'm pissed off. I'm waiting to get something in the mail that was supposedly sent two weeks ago and I still haven't received it. It's the mounting bracket for my rear disc brake, which I ordered over the internet. The place I ordered the brake from sent me a front when I had ordered a rear [it says so right on the invoice!] so they said send us the front mounting bracket and we will send you the rear, as that is the only difference between a front and a rear. Well, I sent them back the front and here it is almost two weeks later and I have yet to receive my replacement bracket. Bleh.

Emilia Pre-molt

My Mexican redleg [Brachypelma emilia] is about to go into a molt, as you can see by her abdomen slowly turning black. I figure she'll molt in about two weeks.

Costa Rican zebra

Here's my Costa Rican zebra [Aphonopelma seemani] after molting. She looks virtually identical to the way she looked before molting.

ThunderSnowStorm

When I woke up this morning, the weatherman said it was snowing outside. Yuck, what a way to start the day. But by the time I had to go to work, most of the snow was gone and the streets were relatively dry. It was actually sunny out for most of the day, but it did grow colder and darker as the day wore on. By the time I was done for the day [I quit a bit early, it was dead today] it had begun to snow lightly.

Now it snowing like crazy. And there was some lightning and thunder earlier. And hail. Shit, I'm just glad I made it home before it got bad. It's the middle of May already, this is getting ridiculous. Make it stop.

Spider Molt 4

This is a closeup of the underside of her abdomen, it looks really weird with those black hairs sticking up. You can also see her long spinnerets and her book lungs.

Spider Molt 3

Here's another detail, this time showing her white fangs. As they dry they will turn a more normal black and harden so she can munch on some more crickets!

Spider Molt 2

Here's a detail pic showing the large hooks at the end of her legs. She sure is orange now! Wonder if her topside is still brown?

Spider Molt

I came home after work and saw this. Damn, I missed the big show! Oh well, can't wait till she flips over and I can see her new skin. This is a Costa Rican zebra [Aphonopelma seemani] by the way.

Fat Emilia

Here's my female Mexican redleg [Brachypelma emilia]. She ate a cricket yesterday, but I think I will stop feeding her for awhile. She's looking rather plump.

Clouds 2

Clouds 1

It was sunny on Monday, then these clouds moved in. It sprinkled a bit while at work, but luckily the major downpour didn't start till after I got home.

Petro Canada East Tower

On second thought, maybe that's the West Tower?

Tipping

The subject of tipping came up on MetaFilter yesterday, and all can say is I'm with Mr. White.

MR. ORANGE: He's convinced me. Give me my dollar back.

From Reservoir Dogs via Generational Terrorists:

NICE GUY EDDIE: Okay, everybody cough up green for the little lady.
NICE GUY EDDIE: C'mon, throw in a buck.

MR. WHITE: Uh-uh. I don't tip.

NICE GUY EDDIE: Whaddaya mean you don't tip?

MR. WHITE: I don't believe in it.

NICE GUY EDDIE: You don't believe in tipping?

MR. PINK: I love this kid, he's a madman, this guy.

MR. BLONDE: Do you have any idea what these ladies make? They make shit.

MR. WHITE: Don't give me that. She don't make enough money, she can quit.

NICE GUY EDDIE: I don't even know a Jew who'd have the balls to say that. So let's get this straight. You never ever tip?

MR. WHITE: I don't tip because society says I gotta. I tip when somebody deserves a tip. When somebody really puts forth an effort, they deserve a little something extra. But this tipping automatically, that shit's for the birds. As far as I'm concerned, they're just doin their job.

MR. BLUE: Our girl was nice.

MR. WHITE: Our girl was okay. She didn't do anything special.

MR. BLONDE: What's something special, take ya in the kitchen and suck your dick?

NICE GUY EDDIE: I'd go over twelve percent for that.

MR. WHITE Look, I ordered coffee. Now we've been here a long fuckin time, and she's only filled my cup three times. When I order coffee, I want it filled six times.

MR. BLONDE: What if she's too busy?

MR. WHITE: The words "too busy" shouldn't be in a waitress's vocabulary.

NICE GUY EDDIE: Excuse me, Mr. White, but the last thing you need is another cup of coffee.

MR. WHITE: These ladies aren't starvin to death. They make minimum wage. When I worked for minimum wage, I wasn't lucky enough to have a job that society deemed tipworthy.

NICE GUY EDDIE: Ahh, now we're getting down to it. It's not just that he's a cheap bastard--

MR. ORANGE: --It is that too--

NICE GUY EDDIE: --It is that too. But it's also he couldn't get a waiter job. You talk like a pissed off dishwasher: "Fuck those cunts and their fucking tips."

MR. BLONDE: So you don't care that they're counting on your tip to live?

MR. WHITE: Do you know what this is? It's the world's smallest violin, playing just for the waitresses.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MR. BLONDE: You don't have any idea what you're talking about. These people bust their ass. This is a hard job.
MR. WHITE: So's working at McDonald's, but you don't feel the need to tip them. They're servin ya food, you should tip em. But no, society says tip these guys over here, but not those guys over there. That's bullshit.

MR. ORANGE: They work harder than the kids at McDonald's.

MR. WHITE: Oh yeah, I don't see them cleaning fryers.

MR. BROWN: These people are taxed on the tips they make. When you stiff 'em, you cost them money.

MR. BLONDE: Waitressing is the number one occupation for female non-college graduates in this country. It's the one jab basically any woman can get, and make a living on. The reason is because of tips.

MR. WHITE: Fuck all that. Hey, I'm very sorry that the government taxes their tips. That's fucked up. But that ain't my fault. it would appear that waitresses are just one of the many groups the government fucks in the ass on a regular basis. You show me a paper says the government shouldn't do that, I'll sign it. Put it to a vote, I'll vote for it. But what I won't do is play ball. And this non- college bullshit you're telling me, I got two words for that: "Learn to fuckin type." Cause if you're expecting me to help out with the rent, you're in for a big fuckin surprise.

MR. ORANGE: He's convinced me. Give me my dollar back.

JOE: Okay ramblers, let's get to rambling. Wait a minute, who didn't throw in?

MR. ORANGE: Mr. White.

JOE: Mr. White? Why?

MR. ORANGE: He don't tip.

JOE: He don't tip? You don't tip? Why?

MR. ORANGE: He don't believe in it.

JOE: He don't believe in it? You don't believe in it?

MR. ORANGE: Nope.

JOE: Shut up! Cough up the buck, ya cheap bastard, I paid for your goddamn breakfast.

MR. WHITE: Because you paid for the breakfast, I'm gonna tip. Normally I wouldn't.

JOE: Whatever. Just throw in your dollar, and let's move. See what I'm dealing with here. Infants. I'm fuckin dealin with infants.

LOTR

And when Precious goes we'll die, yes, die into the dust. Dusst!

Finished reading "Return of the King" today. Well, I finished the main story, there is also a couple hundred pages of appendices at the end. I probably won't read all those as they can be somewhat tedious. Anyway, after reading the whole trilogy, I have to say it was a pretty awesome achievement. Although it does drag a bit in some parts, most of it was a real joy to read. I liked the part where Gandalf confronts Saruman after the war with the Ents. I can't remember seeing that in the movie. They should have had it, Gandalf kicks his ass. Haha. [Sorry about the spoiler, like you didn't know]

So I read The Hobbit, followed by the Lord of the Rings trilogy and then I was going to end with The Silmarillion, but I'm not sure. I might need a break from Middle Earth.

This Weekend

Last Weekend

More Snow

Well I am somewhat over having bounced that cheque. I guess. As I'm typing this, snowflakes are begining to fall outside my window. Big, ugly ones. Damn, when will this madness end. Aren't we halfway through spring already? It's like an abonimation. Last year was even worse, it totally snowed like crazy right through spring. Anyway, the forecast calls for rain just about all week. Bogus.

Another bounced cheque

I just found out I accidently bounced another cheque! I am so bummed out, its not even funny. Last November I bounced a cheque and I was so pissed off. This time I checked my account balance to make sure I had enough money in there to cover the cheque. There was enough, so I wrote the cheque. Apparently, another cheque that I had wrote earlier hadn't been processed so there wasn't enough funds for this latest cheque. The fucked up thing is, I had written that cheque 14 days earlier. And deposited it into a bank machine, so its not like somebody was hanging onto the cheque and not cashing it. Fuck! I hate business accounts, you never have a proper balance. Now this is going to cost me $40 and who knows what else, maybe fuck up my credit. I am so pissed off.

Tax Time

Just finished doing my taxes, yuck. The bad news is that I owe money. I always do, I'm self-employed so I don't get deductions, I just have to deal with the tax thing once a year. The good news is that I didn't make that much money last year [this is good?], I had a lot of expenses and because I spent so much money getting my broken tooth fixed last year, I got to deduct some medical shit. So my overall tax bill was a bit less than last year.

One thing that pissed me off was my GST filing. My net owing was above the minimum for annual filers so I have to start filing quarterly now. [and paying quarterly] And not only that, I could have paid significantly less if I had elected to use the quick method for calculating GST rather than the normal way. I had to opt for this method within the first three months of the year in question, so its too late now. Bogus.

My head's gonna explode. Hey Donnie Darko's on TV. Mmmm, that probably won't help. Need sleep.

Bad Weather

Yesterday it rained almost all day, I was wet and miserable at work, it sucked. Today I wake up and I notice it's bright out side, so I think 'Cool, it's sunny today'. Wrong! There's about ten feet of wet, disgusting snow on the ground! Damn. And there's more coming down as I type this. Maybe tomorrow it will all melt away? [please, please, please]

Calgary has a heavy snowfall warning, accumulations up to 50 centimeters. I'd like to wake up now, this isn't funny anymore.

Hummer Tactical Mountain Bike

I could use one of these. I hear you can mount a machine gun on the military version. Now that would be handy!