Posted 5:49 AM by Tim
Ok. I got the facts pretty wrong in the last post. Neil Gaiman did not write Neuromancer. Nope. He wrote the Sandman series of graphic novels. William Gibson wrote Neuromancer.

So, I'm going to have to find some more Gibson. Maybe I'll pick up a copy of American Gods anyway, as I do like Gaiman's work.

I've finished Neverwhere. It's not a bad book. Predictable in the last chapter, but that's to be expected given the kind of book it is. The story flows well, and makes an area that I hadn't really thought about before seem interesting. If I had enough time, I'd want to do an RPG (probably GURPS) on the general theme, but I'm not sure I could pull it off convincingly. A story in a similar vein, yeah, probably. But maybe not an RPG. The players would all have to be well into the story and have an idea what's expected to make the thing work. Not easy with the whole "under-the-city" concept. Even if I kept it local, like Toronto. Not sure that I could make it work.

Anyhow, the next novel in line is VI. Viral Intelligence. Seems like I picked this one up some time ago. Maybe a year or more. Last time I was riding the trains likely. I'll get a start on it today and see how it reads. Looks like it might be a little hokey, but it is cyberpunk, so it should be reasonably cool.

One more thing. On the whole "reading" front. Its gotten me a little inspired about writing again. I'll probably give writing a bit of a go once I'm through this book. Start working on the train again likely. I've got a few interesting short story ideas. Just need to work them into something.

Posted 9:59 AM by Tim
Ok. I really have to start posting in here again.

Let me recap the last few weeks. We'll start with what I'm currently reading.

The book currently being read is Neverwhere by John Grisham. I've liked Grisham for a while now, after reading Neuromancer some time back. I was directed to Neuromancer as the defacto cyberpunk genre novel. I liked it. When I found myself riding the train on a daily basis again, I went looking for something else. The nice bookstore lady pointed me towards both American Gods which I'd heard about before, and Neverwhere which I hadn't heard about. I took a look into Neverwhere and liked it, so I've picked it up. I'll be done with it around Monday.

Now, lets take a minute to talk about work. The current project is coming close to a close. There's some development coming down the line, and a lot of integration coming down too. I can't say more than that, really, 'cause the bank doesn't like it when people talk too much about what they're doing.

And now, a fairly long bit about gaming.

I've managed to secure a couple of boxes of cards for the next tourney. That's good, because the people have been looking to do some more drafting. The date for the next tourney is set, I've just got to let everyone know about it.

A little about Warhammer 40K. A couple of weeks back, I nabbed a number of Tau Fire Warriors. I followed them with a pair of Tau Crisis suits, and a squad of Drones. That's easily 500 points, so I'm good for them. At the same time, I've been collecting some Space Marines, so that I can use them for the Witch Hunters army that I was planning. I'd been playing Sisters of Battle for a while now, and Witch Hunters seems like the logical step. Unfortunately, it turns out that I can't use the Marines and Witch Hunters together the way I had hoped.

So, now, I've got 4 armies. In order of size: Dark Eldar, Marines, Tau and Witch Hunters. More than enough to overwhelm everything that the rest of the house could put down. It'd be a bit of a boast, but I might just be able to field enough of a combined force to take on everyone and everything up at the tourney. I think that it might be a cool idea to pitch a huge game to the boys up north. See if they'd be interested in a multi-day game. Just me versus them.

Hmmm.... that'd definately need some pictures.

Posted 6:14 AM by Tim
To reinforce my strangeness, I'm about to post something very silly, but accurate (to a degree).

My life is like Monster Garage. At least, my working life is.

Think about it. On Monster Garage, they get get 7 days to design and build an amazing thing on a car, all while keeping the car looking like it did before, and working under a budget. My work, has pretty much the same goals. Desing reports to look like the existing reports, add some functionality, stay under budget, and do it in the shortest time available.

Pretty similar if you ask me. Though - I can see how building a car would be considered to be more "work" than building reports. Yeah. Ok, I can give you that one. But I've never seen an episode where the people making the decisions come in and say "Oh, we've changed our mind. Now we want you to build a boat instead of whatever it is you're doing now." You gotta give me that one.

Posted 6:11 AM by Tim
Working in Toronto has been pretty cool. There's been a little time here and there exploring around the underground, working out how to get from point A to point B, while visiting all the cool spots in between.

Posted 8:11 AM by Tim
I really should be posting here more often. I'm just not finding the time for it though. So, I suppose we recap the week, eh?

Well, it was another lovely week of work. Well, 4 days of work anyway, with Friday being Easter and all that. The work is still good, and I'm not minding any of it yet, so I'm still happy working there.

Easter was nice. The family walked down to the local community center and had a nice pancake breakfast. It was fun for everyone, so that's good.

Bren and I went out to see Hellboy last night. I've seen some of the graphic novel before, and the trailers looked good, so I thought that I knew what I was expecting. It wasn't exactly what I had expected. You know, I assumed that it would be a heavy action, low plot kind of movie. And while there was a good number of action scenes, it wasn't focusing on that. It felt more like a comedy/drama, that just happened to have demons in it. That's what I figure the point of the graphic novel was too. I'll have to borrow or buy a copy to confirm my suspicions at some point.

In other news, my progress with painting has been dismal. It's already the 10 of April, and that means that I've got about 7 weeks left to do whatever I was going to do for painting in the first place. With only 2 units out of 7 done, I'm not likely to be able to get them all finished at this point without painting something every evening from now on. A laudable goal, but ultimately one that I feel is unattainable. I might give it a go anyhow, just to see how much I can actually get done.

Posted 7:56 AM by Tim
And now, a recap of the first week of work.

Rain. Every day for a full week. Not a downpour, just a nice grey sky, chilly wind and the occasional patter of light rainfall. Not a hint of sun or even a suggestion of a break in the clouds. I hear others complain on the 4th day, but I like the weather this way.

I have to learn how to navigate the PATH again. I remember most of it, but I'm working over an area that I haven't explored before. I explore what I can, and learn how to get from here to there. I make a note of the best places to eat. I try to remember how to get to the sushi place, or the pizza place, or how to find Wendy's. I could go aboveground, but I find that I'm more of a tunnel-dweller.

The PATH always takes longer than going topside. I can walk from Union to work above ground in under 7 minutes. By PATH, that's nearly triple the time. Sure, you stay dry and see more shops and people, but you've got to zig-zag through everything.

I've been exploiting a weakness found in most "secure" buildings. Human apathy and courtesy. Here's what I mean. Secure buildings have each floor locked unless you have a keycard to open them. In theory, every person trying to access the floor must swipe their card to make the doors open. This way, only people authorized to get on the floor will get there. In practice, you don't really need a key card. You can always follow someone else - they'll hold the door open for you. That's the apathy part. They don't care enough about the priciple to make you wait and swipe your own card. Also, people on the other side of the door (these are usually all glass) will open them for you, and let you into the floor. This is just basic consideration, but it goes against the philosophy of having a secure door.

The work itself is good. Nothing so demanding as to make me want to run away, and nothing so simple that it doesn't require at least a little thinking or learning to do. The people seem nice enough, but I'm beginning to feel like my name is going to be the odd one. "Tim" just seems so short and simple compared to Arosha, Seemi, Eliahu, Gennadiy, and Humayn. Still, the different names are interesting to try to learn.

The first real week of work has been pretty good. I'm looking forward to next week, when the "training wheels" fall off, and I'm required to run the project I've been shadowing. We'll see how things go once that gets started.