Thoughts from Tim

Posted 8:50 AM by Tim
Out in the boonies where I currently life, the road conditions vary from good to terrible. The road that I live on, specifically, suffers from a form of pothole disease. When it gets wet, potholes form. I'm not sure why this is. Anyhow, some of these potholes get pretty large very quickly. So, it'd be nice if they got fixed quickly too. Farm tractors use the road a lot (see? I told you it was the boonies), and aren't terribly maneuverable, so they'll hit these pretty hard.

And yet, the potholes only last a short time, then they're fixed. I have never seen a city works truck either. Potholes comes, it stops raining, they're fixed the next day. I figure that one of the farmers heads out at night armed with a bucket of asphalt and a shovel. I call him "the Mad Patcher." Umm.. yeah. Well, I call him that to myself really. Of course, I'm not at home a lot, so maybe the works trucks come out during the day, patch up the holes that appeared, and then leave again (without taking 2 days to do so, or leaving any signs of roadwork - like they always seem to do). Besides, that's far more mundane than the Mad Patcher idea.

Posted 12:24 PM by Tim
2 days left. I suppose I should be planning a little more, or trying to figure out something productive to do with my last few days here at work, but that's just not happening.

I finally finished Diablo. I've owned the game for a few years, but never finished it. I got as far as Diablo one time, but didn't manage to beat him. And I had saved in an impossible to win spot (no potions, and facing the big guy and 5 or 6 others at the same time). Yesterday I managed to beat him. Oh, it took about a dozen tries at it of course (I suck!), but I did win. It's pretty cool that I won, but the ending really sucks.

I've been playing the game on VELMA, on the commute home. I often wonder what the people sitting around me think. I play with the sound off, so it doesn't disturb anyone. Well, so the sound doesn't disturb anyone, anyway. I'm sure that someone would find the sound of deamons getting a taste of steel disturbing. Besides, half the people sleep, and I don't want to wake them.

There really isn't any other news.

Posted 12:11 PM by Tim
Weekend over. I saw two movies, almost three. The movies I went/was going to see were: The Country Bears, Lilo and Stitch, and Minority Report. Guess which ones I saw. If your guess included Minority Report, you should have gone to the theatres with us, I would have liked to see that movie.

Anyhow, I've already seen Lilo and Stitch. It's good. I managed to see the first minute of it as well, which I didn't get to see last time. We saw it in a drive-in this time, because it was double featured with Minority Report. We hoped the girls would watch Lilo and Stitch and then get tired and sleep through Minority Report. That didn't happen, of course. The girls would not sleep nicely together and it was also getting really late. When we move to the new house, they are definately getting their own rooms.

The Country Bears is a pretty good movie. There's a little bit of predictability about the whole thing, but it is very well done. A movie like this could have just the main characters as bears, but if you watch the background, you can see that there are bears in other areas of society, more like a race of people than a different species. Of course, there are some really nice ideas in there as well - like the honey bar. And all of the cameo appearances are great too - I'm not very good at recognizing celebrities, so I couldn't tell you who appeared where. The girls seemed to enjoy it a lot also.

There are only 3 days left in my current job. I move on August 1. The move is both physical (I'm actually moving, ya'know), and philosophical (from employment to unemployment, in a new area, etc). I don't mind, I like both facets. I am worried about the financial side. Neither Brenda or I am working now. And employment seems like a difficult proposition again. Personally, I don't mind being unemployed - as long as I can find something more creative to do than browsing porn all day.

I've given a little bit of thought to trying to go with the private consulting company. Spend my days looking for contracts, work at night when I get home, take the weekends to do study new skills and be with the family. I think that could work if things were done right. I'm just not confident that I'd be able to find enough contracts to keep the business floating. I figure that I'd need some sort of side job just to support the main job. I've thought about that too. Maybe I could get a short-term job working at a convenience store, or at a games store (I'd be much better there than at a convenience store). Brenda's done the convenience store thing, and I've helped her with it. It sucks. That, and the amount of shoplifting that takes place in games stores is pretty discouraging.

I'm sure I'll figure out something.

In a somewhat related vein, Bren and I have been doing a bit of furniture reconditioning lately. We'll buy a really bad looking bit of furniture, and then clean, sand and varnish it. We've got a very nice looking dresser and we're getting close to having another one done. Total cost (excluding time) for both pieces is about $60. That includes varnish, etc. We could probably sell each piece for $150 or more. I think the secret is to buy the heaviest, ugliest piece of furniture you can find. These are usually all wood, and usually just in need of a nice paintjob.

Posted 4:45 PM by Tim
Another post from me today. I suppose I'm making up for yesterday's non-post.

Ok. I drink a lot of pop (cola, soda, whatever you wanna call it). I'm talking about a lot. I have at least 2 cans with me during a day, and probably drink a bottle or two also, just while at work. Throw in the ride home (1 bottle), and evenings (probably a can, maybe more), and I'm up to 5 or 6 cans/bottles a day. Pretty harsh on the system, eh? That's not what this is about. This is about the Coke Auction (Canadians only, eh.).

I figure that someone like me, who drinks a reasonable amount of pop can probably get something out of this auction, right? Nope. No chance. After a few weeks of collecting (about a month really), I've got 4200 points (you get 1000 points just for signing up, and 100 points per label). The really bad items (bad in my opinion, like jeans or 5% off something you buy from the US store online) run between 1600 and 2400 points. And, as if I hadn't mentioned it, they suck. Then there are the good items. CD players, watches, computers, cameras and the like. The least pointage I've seen for these things is just slightly over 10,000. They've got friends who don't bother with the bottles. They're janitors or someone with access to a lot of labels and a lot of free time to sort through garbage. The really expensive items (trips to somewhere, music camps) run about 200,000 points or so. Who on earth drinks 180 bottles of pop in only a few months? There isn't a middle ground for prizes either.

Here's where the real problem is for me. If I wanted to get, say, 10% off a pair of jeans (say $40 for cheap jeans, the coupon saving me $4), I'd have to spend 1600 points (couting my 1000 bonus points, that's about $9 of pop (6 * $1.5)). So, I end up spending $45 bucks on $40 jeans. Bad deal there. If I don't have my bonus, then I've spent an extra $24 on my $40 jeans. So the low end stuff is obviously junk.

If I want some of the good stuff (like say a PDA, currently at 78,600 points), I'd have to buy 776 bottles of pop (or find that many labels somewhere). That's about $1,164 for that PDA. Assuming it's normally retailed at $1000, you're paying Much closer to retail on it. This is the only place that the deals come close to making sense. Of course, you do have to buy 776 bottles of pop - I hope you're thirsty. For me, this whole promotion has very little value. I'll probably never use any of my points (and you can't donate them to someone else), so it's probably just an almost amusing waste of time for me. Anyhow, that's enough of that.

Posted 1:02 PM by Tim
I read the news in my elevator at work. It gives me something to look at on the ride, which is probably why it's there.

Anyhow, apparently there's some drug controversy over the Commonwealth games. Some people are taking them, and that's a no-no. I got thinking though. So many people/countries want their atheletes to do well, so they give them steroids, performance enhancers, etc to make them compete better. Why not open up competition to this sort of thing? Like a drug olympics?

Go with the regular events: Sprints, hurdles, skiing, whatever, and change the drug rules. Let anyone (especially the pharmaceutical companies) enter competitors to the events. Their athelete should be sufficiently maxed out on his medications so that his performance is well beyond that of normal people (or even other athletes!). In addition to all the training that these people get, they should also get all the steroids, and custom-tailored performance enhancing drugs they can get down their throats (or injected or however you wanna take those drugs, eh?). The announcers can lead off a race by saying that one athelete is on WunderDrug X, while another is on near-lethal doses of WunderDrug Z. Instant advertising, and you don't have to pretend that it's just a sponsor logo that got into the camera by mistake.

For one thing, you wouldn't have any scandals about an athelete coming up positive for a drug test after the race (at most you'd have to worry about them coming up negative!). Also, all this competition would be good for the pharmaceutical companies to try to make better and more targeted drugs. This seems like a good thing to me. Of course, I'd also support the idea of having competitors surgically altered to better compete too - think bionics and weird stuff like that.

Anyway, that's all for this episode of "is he on Crack?"

Posted 9:14 AM by Tim
I didn't blog yesterday. I'm not dead or anything. I just didn't have time.

Ok. There's a challenge happening amongst a few of my friends. The challenge relates to the viability of a deck of Magic in a tournament. Yeah, we're all geeks that way. Anyhow, the basic challenge stems from this. One guy posts a list and says he's gonna try it. Wayne supports the idea. This other guy (I'd use his name, but I haven't asked him yet) doesn't think it'll work. So, after the friendly banter started to devolve into arguing, Wayne throws out a challenge to put the words into action. He's offered me as judge. That's cool. I didn't expect it, but it's nice to be thought of as someone able to be independant in these things.

The other guy doesn't want me a judge though, as I'm a longtime friend of Wayne, and fears that I may judge things in his favour. I can understand that. I mean, if it were me, I'd want someone impartial also. Besides I don't know the other guy nearly as well, and he doesn't know me that well either. I've told both of them that they should agree to a judge together. Get whoever it is to agree to judge the match, and that's cool with me. Of course, I'll still judge if they want me to. I'm flexible that way (though not so flexible... wait this is getting off topic...). I've also stated that if they decided on me, and the other guy had any reservations, I'd happily not judge it.

Of course, they've picked a day I can't attend for the matchup. So, it doesn't look like it'll matter if I judge it or not. I won't be there. Maybe they'll postpone it for a few days until I'm in the area?

Posted 9:34 AM by Tim
Two main thoughts today. First, the Pope, and second, blogging.

The Pope is in Ontario. Actually, he's probably still on Strawberry Island, not too far from where I live. In case I haven't mentioned it before, I'm not Catholic. I'm a Christian, but I don't quite get all the Catholics. They're a strange bunch to me. Anyway - the Pope is here. Newspapers have been blabbing about his arrival for weeks now, and now that he's here, there like a Pope section or something. One of today's papers (more than one really) shows a picture of the Pope, and a crying, little girl. The caption says something to the effect of, "I told him I loved him, and he said it back."

I know that the Pope is basically the king of religion, so I suppose this is the equivalent of the real Santa Claus coming to town and telling you you're on the good list or something. I'm just not sure about the paper's coverage. Maybe they should make a bigger deal about the Pope leaving the plane by walking down instead of being hydraulically lifted down in some sort of protective Pope-bubble thing like they said they were going to do. Bah.

Now, on with the second part. Brenda, loving wife that she is, finally asked me about blogging. She wanted to know why I do it. This is a question that I've wondered about myself, but have refused to answer so that I don't respond with something stupid. Well, lets answer this thing, and get it out of the way. Even if I come up with no good reason, I'll probably keep blogging anyway, because I like doing it.

Let's start at the beginning. Why did I start blogging? Well, I remember being lead to a blog from an email or something. I started reading it every day. Then I read some more blogs. Then I found out I could blog if I wanted to. I didn't start though. This was about June or July of last year. Work at that time had reached the point it is at with my work today. Nothing on the docket, so I spent my time surfing the net. I started to realize that I had things to say. I was writing a lot of long winded emails then, and also writing an article or two for a Magic strategy site I visited a lot. Round about September, I wanted to write a lot of stuff about 9/11. I didn't get around to getting a blog together until November though (at least that's what the archives tell me). Since then, I've written about 5 times a week - mostly from work.

So, why do I blog? What have I got to say? Anyone who's read the blog knows that I blog because my day is boring. And I've got nothing to say. I suppose that's a reasonable answer, but it doesn't answer why I keep doing it? Couldn't I just not blog? Well, yeah. I could just not blog if I wanted to, but I still want to do this. I still want a place for me to ramble and rant about stupid things like anime, cards and whatever strikes my fancy. I suppose the real reason that I blog is because I like it. I started doing it, and I liked it, so I keep doing it. Whenever it becomes a bore or bothersome, you can be sure that I'll stop.

Posted 12:39 PM by Tim
Not a lot to say today, so I'm just gonna ramble.

My girls like anime. That's not terribly surprising, I like anime, and so does Brenda. Small wonder that they like it too. I mean, most of what they watch is Disney movies, but they love them. My anime collection stretches from "nice" to "brutal". The girls only get to watch the "nice" ones. Those are movies like Kiki's Delivery Service, and Cybersix.

Now, anyone who's seen both of those movies knows several things. First, Kiki is a movie, and Cybersix is a series (not technically a movie). We can ignore that point. Secondly, Kiki is about a little girl (a little girl witch specifically) who heads out on her own for her witch training, and has a few pleasant adventures along the way (it's a very nice story about a strong female lead, with a very good storyline - back to my point, now), while Cybersix is about a mutant superhero who goes around dispensing vigelante justice against the wicked. Kiki has no violence, but some suspense, while Cybersix is loaded with combat, suspense, and a fair number of fires/explosions/evil mutants. Yet, I class both of these as "nice." There's a good reason.

Both of the movies are smart, well drawn, well acted, and have solid stories. Even though there is some violence in Cybersix, there's no gore. No sexual content (well, both movies draw on at least a little bit of sexual tension between main characters - actually, Kiki suggests sexual tension in several areas of Kiki's life, but that's reading in quite a bit...). Best of all, both movies have strong female leads. They have a lot of things I want for my girls, passion, strong self esteem and even good examples of vulnerability, without becoming a victim (and that's whether it's Kiki being depressed about losing her ability to fly, or Cybersix needing help out of a particularily bad spot).

I find that most Disney movies have the female portrayed as a secondary, or almost secondary, character (watch Aladdin, Hercules, or a few others for this). Sure, they do make movies where there is a stong female lead (Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, etc), but in each of these films, the female inevitably finds a strong and handsome man for her husband. They also tend to end up a victim for one reason or another. I'm sure you could argue that the Little Mermaid shows Ariel saving the Prince at least twice, but the Prince ultimately saves everyone (and he's supposedly a secondary character given his amount of screen time. If you're wonder what event I'm talking about, the Prince rams the sea witch with the ship, which makes her drop the trident, which ultimately leads to Triton saving the day).

Admittedly, Disney can make some strong female leads. Lilo and Stich is new, and has some robust females in it. Of course, the movie really stars Stitch (despite having Lilo in the title).

Gah. Didn't think I'd get onto the rant there. I'm going to have to look for a few more good anime. See if I can show my girls something else good to watch, instead of just all the Disney stuff out there.

Posted 10:08 AM by Tim
Wayne was up this weekend, as mentioned in his last post. A good weekend all around. Brenda's mom had her birthday, we missed out on a Type 1 tournament, the cousins came over for a visit, and more happened. I'm sure I'm supposed to remember something I was supposed to blog about, but it's slipped my mind. Maybe I'll get it later.

Anyhow, on the newsworthy front, there are only 9 days until my move - and the end of work. I'm all done on the 31, so I'll start the engaging life of the "unemployed, temporary bachelor" with Wayne at the new place. Well, I'm not sure if Wayne will be there or not, but I figure that getting the placed set up will be interestion enough for a while anyhow. The official move date is around the 16.

While Wayne was in town, we (myself, Brenda and Wayne) decided to hit a bar and play some pool. We ended up at the only real "pool bar" in Midland. Shania Twin (yes, the cover artist) was there. Apparently loud = good. I must say that I wasn't impressed. We played some three-handed pool, and had drinks. Pop is free after you pay for the first one ($3.25 or something... but we drank about 5 of 'em each). If you've never played three-handed pool, here's what we were using as rules. Each player is shooting for 5 balls. 1-5, 6-10 or 11-15. You have to shoot them in order. Sinking another player's ball is bad for you and doesn't count as sinking a ball, but sinking a ball of yours out of order makes it come out again.

There were some really good shots made by Wayne and Brenda. I had some good ones also, but most were flukes. My most impressive fluke had the cue strike the 12 (the ball I was shooting) which then jumped three balls and traveled into the side pocket. Woo! One thing that I'm terrible at is managing to shoot long straight shots. I simply can't hit them. Maybe I need to play more pool.

In Toronto news, apparently there was a lightning strike which caused a nice size fire downtown. Also, the Pope is here. Catholics abound. I haven't seen any, since the hell-like temperatures seem to drive them underground.

Oh, right. I recall something about the weekend that I wanted to blog about. While out and about with Wayne, we stopped at a little chinese food place in the mall. Cute waitress (underage of course, but still cute). Apparently she's working 95 hours a week in the summer. 2 jobs. Works for her dad for no pay in the mall for probably 45 hours a week, and a regular 40 hour a week job elsewhere. Her main torture that day was having to watch golf on the mall TV. We would have changed the channel for her, but other people were watching it.

More from the weekend later.

Posted 8:52 AM by Tim
Just to let everyone know, I got me an EKG last night to check the chest pain. Normal. So, it's likely a combination of exercise (lack thereof - I stopped), diet (too much junk), and stress. Which means that all I have to do is eat smaller meals more often, of better food, while exercising more and stressing less. I should have gotten the doc to prescribe sex. Oh well, next time.

In other news, I'm down to 9 days of work left. Assuming I don't work on the weekends (and why would I do that?). Wayne's dropping by this weekend, which should be entertaining and fun. That's pretty much it.

Posted 11:06 AM by Tim
Blah. I've been worried about death lately. Probably unnecessarily. After all, how likely is it that I'm going to die? Well, I can't answer that and I'm not going to try. I've been having a bit of chest pain lately. Nothing major, most people have a little bit of angina (chest pain, that is), now and then. For me, it's a little troubling. I've been having it more frequently than I should, and I've got a solid family history of heart problems (my dad, and his dad, and possibly his dad's dad).

They say that a son will have a heart attack 15 years earlier than the father had theirs. My grandpa had a heart attack at 65. He survived for a while, then died. My dad managed to keep the clock running to schedule and had his at 50, he also lived and survives to this day (though he's had 2 attacks lifetime, and triple bypass surgery). My clock, based on the numbers, is set at 35. I'm 26 now - a mere 9 years away. So, chest pain is a "bad thing" for me. I'm gonna chat with a nice doctor person today probably. That and keep away from deep fried fat, etc.

Here's hoping things get better quick, and that it's all just gas or something.

Posted 9:36 AM by Tim
I intended to blog yesterday, but just couldn't. Yesterdays blog would have been about how my youngest daughter got up early with me and had breakfast. But, I'll dump that lovely story, and continue on to the world of pain that kept me from blogging.

As I've said, I have a sunburn. It's not a terrible one, but it's pretty bad. This being my second sunburn in a month, I obviously didn't learn my lesson the first time. Last night, I began to itch. A lot. Everywhere. Never had I itched so badly before - made worse because I can't scratch it or I'll just make it worse. Nothing helped, in fact, everything made it worse. I just kept being itchier and itchier. I can now add psychotic madness to the short (but disturbingly growing) list of madnesses I've experienced (or at least near experienced). The list includes psychotic, random, homicidal and delusional. Woo, I'm pretty versatile.

Anyhow, the only real solution to the problem was to be left alone to try to force myself into sleep. I've got a knack for falling asleep anywhere, under the loudest, bumbiest, most uncomfortable conditions, so I figured that it shouldn't be too hard. I was really hoping that sleep would either magically fix the itchiness, or at least give me a few hours to ignore it. I was right about the ignore part. Today I'm still itchy, but nowhere near as bad as last night. I hope it doesn't get that bad again.

Posted 9:24 AM by Tim
Woo. Weekend over. I'm tired, in pain and happy. The tired comes from a late night, playing in the sun too much and little sleep overall. The pain comes from the massive sunburn I got. The happy comes from the fact that it was an enjoyable weekend.

Highlights of the weekend were that I was able to build a couple of sandcastles. This is how I managed to get my sunburn (only weeks after the last one I got).

I'm going to have to start getting some more sleep, or figure out some way that I can sleep at work.

Brenda and I started some of the packing for the move. Basically, we pulled out the travel totes and hunted through them for some documents we needed. Then we (well, she) repacked them. There's bound to be a lot more repacking going on over the next few weeks.

Posted 8:59 AM by Tim
As I had said on Monday, my daughter lost her first tooth this weekend. Wednesday she lost her second. Of course, by then she didn't believe in the Tooth Fairy anymore. Her cousin explained it all too her, apparently throwing in a few other things like the Easter Bunny and Christmas. My oldest is only 6, so that's gotta be a huge disillusionment. We're trying to convince her otherwise, but I doubt that we'll have any luck. Of course, this will get passed to the youngest post haste, which pretty much wraps the ball on that.

In other news, it's Friday, and I am looking forward to getting some serious sleep this weekend. It won't happen of course, but it's a nice thought.

I'm getting geared up for the end of contract. July 31 is officially the last day of work here. I've got a lot of planning to do before then. Moving plans, getting the services hooked up, getting resumes out, everything. I know it's leading to a short stay away from the family, but it'll be worth it in the end. Bren and I are both concerned about our financial situation, but I think we're going to be alright.

Posted 9:54 AM by Tim
Well, it's Thursday. That's about the limit of my excitment for this morning. Let's talk about last night. After getting home, I managed to make it to the movies with Brenda. We went to see MIIB, or as it's more commonly known, Men In Black 2. We ran a little late, again, but still early enough to miss maybe the first minute, including the opening title, etc. Not that bad really.

The movie was alright. Cool scenes, a lot of CG, and some interesting little points here and there. Even a little commentary on the social state in NY it seemed. There were a few things that bothered me though. Tops on the list has the be the whole flip and multi-kick thing done by Z. First, it's not right. He's not built to handle that kind of flip, and the kick thing just isn't possible. Sure they could have some kind of tech (I mean, they do take a fair amount of beating in the movie), but it was unnecessary. Secondly, J turns into a big idiot once K is back. I mean, he's been handling things for 5 years. Doesn't that make him an expert already? And suddenly, he's like the idiot brother. Gah. Just bad. Lastly, is the ending scene. All of earth is inside an aliens locker at the bus terminal? Umm... hello? While it is a neat trick (they showed simialr size things a few times, which was interesting), I don't think it has anything to do with the story, except maybe as a corollary to the first movie (where our universe is a marble).

Overall a nice movie with some interesting bits.

Of course, today I'm really tired. That's what happens when you're up so late. Bren's reminded me that working like this (little sleep, long hours) increases my risk for heart attacks. Toss on my eating habits, family history, lack of exercise and so forth and I've got what? 2 minutes left? Bah. Gotta do something to fix all this I suppose. Maybe the looming unemployment will relax me?

Posted 9:34 AM by Tim
I stayed home from work yesterday to have this throat infection looked at. Yeah, great opener. Anyway, it's a viral infection, so I'll be fine. The doctor and nurse there both explained about viruses to me. Which I found amusing. After all, I did study virology.

One nice thing about staying home is that I get time to spend with the family. It's nice to do that now and then.

I had a chance to pick up a box of Magic cards to prepare me for the next set of tournaments. I'm not sure how many I'm going to be able to attend, but the plan is to win a few games to get enough store credit to not have to pay for games again. That's not a very likely scenario considering everything that is going on.

Let me fill you in on the "goings on." August the 2 will be my last day of work here. My contract expires, and there is no extension. I expected as much, and I believe that it will be a happy break for both of us. I don't have another job lined up at the moment, and I'm not sure where I'm going to get one. As it stands, I've got enough cash in the coffers to handle the rent for a few months. So, I'm not going to be able to laze about on some kind of extended vacation - as nice as that sounds. It's kind of funny that we're just getting back to being independant at the time that I lose my job. That's an irony, isn't it?

Anyhow, Wayne has made some assurances about his ability to float the rent entirely for a very short period of time. We'd hate to do that to him, so we're going to see what we can do to keep that from happening. I'm thinking that I should start working freakish overtime, but I don't see the workload to justify it. So, I'll probably pull in 3 more less-than-expected paychecks, and be done with it.

On the bright side, I am looking at finally getting some study time for my MCP. Ought to be good to qualify for that.

More news as it breaks...

Posted 2:06 PM by Tim
Hmm.. slow day at work. I have very few assigned tasks right now. I have one standing job, and one other real job. The standing job is easy enough (and takes me all of 5 minutes), the other job is not so easy. Basically, I have to do whatever needs doing. This isn't easy when most work is assigned. Either I'm not on the "assign" list anymore, or there isn't that much left for me to do. This leads to me sitting pretty much idle. Well, there is always just documentation, but that workload grows thinner the more you use it.

So, with very little to do, I'm not quite sure what it is that I'm supposed to be doing. Maybe I need to come up with something new? I have been thinking about programming quite a bit lately. This happens as I grow more bored with the status quo. I start wanting to do other things. Write, program, draw, it's all in there. If you take a look at my most productive periods, they were usually during periods of unemployment or complacency at work. Always towards the end of things. I've got ambition, I just need proper motivation.

Now, to start planning the features list of my loyal army of robot warriors!

Posted 10:27 AM by Tim
Ah, I remembered part of what I wanted to blog about. Lilo and Stitch. I wanted to see it almost as much as a I want to see the Powerpuff Girls Movie. Don't look at me like that. Powerpuff Girls are great! Bah, you don't know nothing.

Anyhow, Lilo and Stitch. Brenda and I took the girls, and their cousins to the movie on Saturday. Just the 6 of us. We were running a little late, of course. That bothers me to no end. I like to be there early, or at least on time to see the previews. I'm not sure why though, I usually hate the previews. Anyhow, we get there about 30 seconds into the movie or so. It's hard to say exactly, because we came in about 10 minutes after the start time. So, we probably didn't miss much. I do know that we did need to get there early enough to see the start (the reviews gave me that much information). It's an interesting movie, with Lilo being exceptionally imaginative "...but her head's too big, so I imagine that bug laid eggs in her head, and she's sad because she only has a few days..." as well as being able to handle the craziest of situations, "Oh good, my dog's found the chainsaw." The movie is a little overboard on the disbelief portion, especially with the number of aliens running about (and nobody bothering to notice), but it's just another level of absurdity in the movie (in addition to the more discreet absurdities (like Agent Bubbles)).

The ending is predictible in that it is happy, but done in a way that is at least not too trite. There are a few running gags in the film, which you can catch without watching too hard (the ice cream guy), and I'm sure that there are a few things that might take repeated viewings to catch. Overall, it's good.

If I get the opportunity, I'm going to try to catch the Powerpuff Girls Movie soon.

Posted 9:05 AM by Tim
This was a busy weekend. So many things going on. We got the dresser sanded, varnished, re-sanded and varnished again. It looks very nice. All for $10 (plus supplies, time and effort - still, we could sell the thing for a profit).

Origins was this weekend, but Wayne and I missed it. Too bad for us. Wayne went off east to see his parents, I stayed home to enjoy the family.

My oldest daughter lost her first tooth. She's got a little gap now, but she doesn't mind. The only thing that did bother her was the blood involved in a tooth coming out.

VELMA got a new battery, which seems to be able to run for 3.5 to 4 hours. That's good. Now I don't have to worry about longer trips.

We're a week closer to the move date. This is good and bad. It means that we're also a week closer to my unemployment. I can handle that I think. The plans for the move are shifting. That's normal for me. Plans always change. We're now thinking of making the move around the 15 or so. This gives the girls time to finish their summer activities. It does leave us with only 15 days to get settled before school starts again. Wow, I didn't realize it was that close. Anyhow, I'm thinking of making a "temporary" move there to settle things like the phone, cable, etc. Something to make sure everything is in working order and ready for the family. I'm sure we're going to need curtains and such, so a few days with the sewing machine, fabric and peace and quiet should be fine.

I've really got to start blogging on the weekend. There were a number of things that happened that I wanted to blog about, that really have slipped my mind. Maybe I'll remember through the day.

Posted 11:03 AM by Tim
In the land of freak there is a little me. Woah. Just noticed that I got linked by Bad Samaritan. Umm... that's cool. Now I feel like I have to be entertaining or something.

Anyway, I've been pondering the whole apartment thing again. Where are we going to put everything? The place is a three-level apartment, three bedroom, 1.5 bath. Wayne's going to live down in the basement with the washer and dryer, all his stuff and his new gaming table. We're going to take over the upstairs with three beds, a futon, 2 dressers, 2 or 3 desks, 2 lay-z-boy recliners, a couch, kitchen table (and chairs), hutch, 3 computers, 2 TVs, 2 VCRs, shelves and a lot of other stuff. We're looking at taking over all the bedrooms too. Put the girls together in one, leave the other just for toys, and take the last for ourselves. We'll probably end up with the better positioned of the two smaller rooms.

Of course, Wayne and I will need to go get a hub or something to wire up a house network, and to set up either DSL or Cable net. Chances are that Wayne and I will be playing quite a few online games in addition to the general gaming madness that will go on.

One thing that concerns me is the amount of stuff we'll be bringing in comparison to the stuff Wayne'll be bringing. I mean, he's lived the bachelor life for a while now, and that means he's got next to nothing furniture-wise. He's got a matress he keeps on the floor, a table he's trashing when he leaves, and maybe three chairs. Maybe. Needless to say, he's going to have to get used to our furniture again (he lived with us for a short stint). But I think we can make it work.

I wish we had an extra room already - I'd like a little place to put all my gaming stuff.

Posted 10:17 AM by Tim
Well, the city is really in for it now. Let me recap for those not in the know.

Toronto has been discussing contracts with two CUPE unions (416 and 79?). These are the "inside" and "outside" worker unions. The outside workers handle garbage, paramedics and so forth. The inside workers handle parades, festivals, parking, museums, concert halls and such. The outside workers went on strike about 9 days ago. 2 million people's garbage sits uncollected in most of Toronto. There's been 30+ degree heat too, so we're building up a good stink. The inside workers went on strike this morning. That means that a lot of stuff just shut down. Public pools for one, which actually just opened on Friday.

The situation in the city is pretty ragged now. No garbage collection, high heat and fewer paramedics. Nothing for the kids on summer vacation to do, and nowhere free to take them. To me, this means more kids in the streets hanging out with the rats and flies attracted by the added mess, and just generally more chaos.

The strikes are expected to last a long time. September I think. The city is looking at legislation to get the outside workers working again. I personally feel that's not right, but it'll probably happen. My main question is this: How do you legislate someone back to work? Isn't that slavery of some kind? Besides, even if you force people back to work, how are you going to force them to do a good job?

Anyway, that's the state of affairs here.

Posted 12:10 PM by Tim
It's hard to believe that it's Wednesday already. The week just flies. The commute is bothering me more than it should lately. I'm tired in the morning, and there's so much I want to get accomplished at night, but so little time to do any of it.

Of course, the overall heat isn't helping. High heat, humidity and little wind makes for an uncomfortable house. We don't have air conditioning, but we do have a good sized fan. We bought one of the industrial cooling fans from costco. I tried to buy another yesterday, but they were totally sold out. I can understand that though. I bought the first fan while it was still relatively cool during the day. Now that we're dealing with 30 - 40 degree weather (that's Celsius), they've sold all their stock.

We'll probably pick up another one after the heat breaks.

Posted 1:19 PM by Tim
It's Molson Indy week here in Toronto. That's where the city closes off a section of downtown, slows traffic down to 230MPH and lets people pay to watch what traffic in downtown could be like if only 30 cars were allowed.

Of course, working for a major bank downtown means that they have to put on a big show. I'm sure they're a sponsor or something. I got to watch some RC races, get some free candy, look at how small race cars are, and ogle the breasts of the perky eye-candy helping in the booths. Overall a good day. Of course, I'd rather be doing something constructive. I practically have to invent work for myself at this point.

Posted 11:20 AM by Tim
Yesterday was Canada Day. I took some time out and relaxed. I also got a really nice sunburn. Oh well, can't win them all.

Canada Day always reminds me of home. The street party, the friends, and basically just being back where I grew up. It's all different now, of course, but I still reminisce. There's a story I can tell that involves a paint gun, a plan and really annoying DJ, but I'll let you fill in the details on that one.

I had a most enjoyable weekend. Three days off is always nice, but now I am back to work. Well, what little there is of work for me anyway. See, my work is almost done. My contract ends on the 4th of August (well, the 2nd likely), and that leaves me with very little time overall. In addition, most of my "core" jobs here have been taken by other people at the office. I'm now down to a single function - which takes me all of 5 minutes if I do it all at once. Other than going to meetings, my day is a loss.

There are only 29 days until the move for the new apartment. I'm looking forward to it. The wife's parents have been away, so we've had the place nearly to ourselves. It's been nice, if different. There's been a lot more cleaning going on than usual. I suppose the in-laws do most of it? That or Bren really kills herself every day to keep up. We'll see when we get to the new place.