ShinyPlasticBag

For some strange reason, MySQL decided to eat my Nucleus databases. I'm not sure what, exactly, happened. After messing with it over my lunch break and now, at the ward clerk desk, I've finally fixed it. Yes, it's that dead in the ER tonight that I can do this.

Anyway, half the tables got corrupted, and I was worried I might lose everything (since it's been longer than usual since my last thorough backup). Fortunately, everything important is fine. The weird thing is that my skins disappeared, while the templates stayed intact. Odd.

And my digging through the databases led me to remember that Nick was the first person to ever leave a comment here, talking about fluffy bunny rabbits.

Please continue leaving comments on the previous post, unless you feel like bemoaning database crashes.

• Written on 29 February 2004 & posted at 05:08 AM.
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Stoplightis: The proper name for the phenomenon where by you sit in a car at a red light, waiting to turn right, and as the light finally turns green, you realize that you could have made that turn at any point while you were waiting. Note that the same name also applies to the condition that causes people to make right hand turns on red lights despite signage telling them not to.

Life continues and my spring break is winding down. Yesterday, Janet and I watched one of the worst movies ever made: The Convent. If anyone who was involved in the creation of this garbage ever stumbles across this entry, please kick yourself. Be ashamed. You've inflicted something on the world that is so terrible, it makes me question whether or not we, as a race, will make it through this century.

Whilst I wandered to Halifax yesterday afternoon to retrieve my mom from work, Janet created a masterpiece: The story of the Neanderwaffle. We have a running gag about various neander-creatures, and the Neanderwaffle is my personal favorite. I really wish they were real. All of this talk of non-existant creatures really makes me want to play some more Yeti Sports games. I haven't tried the new version of Bat the Penguin yet — should be interesting. I wonder how that whole thing started. What was going through that guys head when he decided that a yeti hitting a penguin with a baseball bat would be a good premise for a game? I'm not saying it's not, I just think it's weird.

Anyway, I'm off to watch Platoon, which is on A&E as I type this. So, I'll close this entry with a bit of a survey:

1. Who's speed dial #1 on your phone?
2. What's channel 18 where you live?
3. How much did CD-Rs cost when you started burning CDs?

Obviously, the answer to #2 will be the same for most of you here. And not everyone has burned a CD. But here are my answers:

1. Janet
2. CNN
3. $4.99 + tax

Ah, blog interactivity. It's a wonderful thing.

• Written on 28 February 2004 & posted at 06:20 PM.
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So, I just took this country quiz that I found on Chasing Daisy. Guess what country I am?


Well, who would have thought that? I guess it's a pretty accurate quiz after all. Here's the description they provide:
Since I don't actually have that weird affection for “ice hockey” (is there really any other sort? Just call it hockey!), I guess I'm the perfect person. Score.

Oh, check out this fantastic blizzard photo. I love it.

• Written on 24 February 2004 & posted at 03:43 PM.
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On August 9th, 1999, I got my first cell phone. It was a brick — a Motorola 330/e. I loved it's bulkiness, the freedom it gave me, and the way it made my face feel like it was on fire while I talked on it. That fall, I traded up and I got a Nokia 900, which ended up piece of garbage. That phone met a watery demise on the flume ride at Upper Clement's Park, so I got my next phone in the spring of 2000, which was an Audiovox (I can't remember the model number). This phone wasn't bad, and it lasted a long time. In August of 2001, I got a Sanyo phone with Telus. I was one of the lucky few that got Talk Halifax, the best mobile plan in the universe. Unlimited calling 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for $40 a month. That phone lasted me until May of 2003, when it finally kicked the bucket. I got a Samsung flip phone to replace it, and I really liked it. Flipping was good.

On Saturday, my mom sent that phone on a trip through the washing machine. I woke up after an evening of back shift (my first shift by myself, yay!) to a watery looking phone that didn't function at all. Mike and I headed off to Mic Mac Mall, so I could buy a replacement. And did I ever get a replacement.

Continue reading “Number Six”...

• Written on 23 February 2004 & posted at 05:50 PM.
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WOW. I have never seen so much snow before in my entire life — this must be what life is like in Newfoundland, because they get storms like this pretty regularly. Unfortunately, I lent my camera to Russell and Amanda to take pictures of widdle Alexander. However, my Mom disappeared (and claims that she almost drowned) when she ventured off to the shed in the backyard. John has been stranded at my house for two nights, and Mike and Janet for one. Oh yeah, Keddy was there too. Sorry I forgot you, but you left.

It only took an hour and a half to clear out our driveway, but there were five of us working on it. It was waist deep in most places, and neck deep at the edge, where the snowplow had wreaked its havoc. Snowplows really are the bane of our existence up here in Canada.

Anyway, Mike has been called into work to spend the night/weekend at the mall (being a security guard and all). I think that would be kind of interesting. Myself, I have to work backshift tonight. This is exciting, because it's my first night by myself. My premiere, as it were. My boss is somewhat concerned, because I'll be the only person in the history of the hospital to begin my shifts without having my skills tested first, but the snow messed everything up. I'm quite confident, or at least as confident as one can be without being an idiot. It should be fun.

So, I was thinking, Kitta should start pushing Australia towards us, and we'll start pushing Canada towards her (I figure we'll meet somewhere off the coast of Africa). She's in the middle of a 40 degree heatwave, and we're in the middle of a 50 cm blizzard. It would balance out quite well. Thoughts?


Life's messed up. We're supposed to get another 20 - 30 cm of snow, and Nova Scotia is still officially in a state of emergency. This means they can do crazy things like, oh, I don't know...declaring a curfew from 11 tonight until 7 tomorrow morning, with a $1000 fine for any and all violators. The curfew applies to those travelling by wheel or by foot. Messed up.

• Written on 20 February 2004 & posted at 01:54 PM.
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Good day, folks. Guess what? My infamous Trudeau essay has finally been passed in. I have been panicking about this for weeks now, since I'm such a bad essay writer, but I think it came out alright. Plus, Jesse brought up a very good point: it's a first-year class. In political science, no less. How hard could they possibly mark it?

The background on this mild clusterfuck was the (incorrect) advice often spouted about by people who have no clue what they're talking about: “you should have a diverse university experience.” This, great as it sounds, is wrong. Stick with what you're good at, because trying new stuff leads to you being enrolled in classes that you don't really like, spending time banging your head against a desk in an asbestos-filled lecture hall, wondering why you're there. Nation vs state, hitting side of desk vs top of desk, it all becomes the same after a while. Grr.

Anyway, it looks like I might not have to worry about that stuff for a while, because Dalhousie might be going on strike, yet again. This time, it's the teacher assistants that are unhappy. They make $75 a week, but if they go on strike, they get $200. I'd go on strike if I were them. However, I don't understand what they're complaining about: TAs do absolutely nothing. Sure, they keep the labs running in the physics department, but by and large, TAs don't do a whole lot. The way I look at it, they have to do this before they can become full-fledged teacher. It's a part of their education that, oddly, they're getting paid to do — where's the complaint? I'm paying something like $200 every week to go to my classes...and...wait! That's what their strike pay is. Suspicious.

Last time there was a strike — and I would like to point out that two strikes in the last two years is a pretty bad track record for my beloved university — we lost a month's worth of classes. Sure, they extended the semester, but all that really did was screw up the travel arrangements of the many out-of-country students, and mess up working for a lot of other folks. Plus, it led me to write some weird stuff. I hereby sigh loudly, and sign off. Goodnight.

• Written on 16 February 2004 & posted at 11:26 PM.
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Alright, it's time for a quick blog entry tonight (since I have to return to work in ten minutes). The topic? Bad movies.

Well, not necessarily bad movies, actually. Unknown movies. My suggestion is, in the interesting of expanding my horizons (this was a bad thing to do in a scholarly sense — boo-urns, political science!), I suggest we all share some movies.

So, answer the following questions if you please, and post the result as a comment.

1. Best non-English movie — anime doesn't count
2. Best indie/B movie — ie not a mainstream theatre release
3. Absolutely the worst indie/B movie ever

My results are as follows:

1. Enlightenment Guaranteed
2. Waydowntown
3. Shark Attack 2

Let's hear it for B movies!

• Written on 15 February 2004 & posted at 01:29 AM.
• There are 23 comments.
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You know, sometimes, it's fun to get together with a few friends and make up your own words to Vertical Horizon songs and go on large, random road trips throughout the city. John came over tonight, to save me from essay writing (ugh ugh ugh), and we picked up Keddy so we could have a good old fashioned road trip. We wandered through all of the buroughs of the Halifax Regional Municipality:

1. Cole Harbour: we live here, so this was a good place to start.
2. Burnside: this generally comes after Cole Harbour, because the highway is a much better way to get around.
3. Sackville: we had some time to kill, and the Tim Horton's out there is pretty decent.
4. Bedford: had to go pick a certain someone up from work.
5. Halifax: after taking the long way around the Bedford Basin, we ended up here.
6. Dartmouth: unless we felt like going back through Bedford, this was a natural next step on the journey home.
7. Cole Harbour: weren't we here earlier? Oh, yes. We live here. Right.

A fun evening, to be sure. There was lots of random music — 9 PM (Til I Come) will remain my anthem until the day I die. It was also good to hang out with John again, even if he is a greedy little commerce student. It's been ages. Keddy also got the chance to demonstrate that yes, his new phone does work. We've yet to open up his old one to see if, indeed, there was a nugget of faeces where the electronics should have been. That phone was horrid.

So, now I'm back home, after a long day of existence. It was a typical day: get up, go to school, go visit formerly-pregnant friend in hospital, go home, write essay, eat food made in new deep fryer, go out and drive around randomly. I also bought a magazine: Soma. The street issue, in fact. I had gone to Chapters to see if they had the new issue of Planet Magazine in, but alas, they did not. Soma looked like the next best thing; I'm a big fan of magazines that are pretty vague as to what the subject matter truly is. It's a sure fire way to win. So, now that I'm home, my goal is simply to read that and go to bed. After hitting the wonderful “Post & Publish” button, of course. Good night, all.


(Click)

• Written on 12 February 2004 & posted at 10:50 PM.
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Well, sometime around five o'clock this morning, Alexander (Middle Name) Beswick fell out of Amanda, after many weeks of her hobbling around and saying “any day now”. He's small and red and screaming, which is pretty normal, so congratulations Amanda and Russell. Thank you for not naming his Goku. And happy birthday, Alexander. Here's what naked ladies looked like the day you were born. Maybe someday you'll read this and realize how strange it is that the world existed before you did, and maybe you'll wonder why your parents hung around people like us. I currently have, and probably never will have, an explanation for that little fact.

I'm sure it will be pretty weird around the apartment with him around now, but interesting too. I have absolutely no information on babies stored up in my mind, thanks to the wonders of being an only child. Wow, did I ever luck out there.

And it's time for class, so I'm off. To those of you having troubles with disappearing scrollbars in Firefox, just switch back to the default theme. This problem occurs with pretty much every new version of Mozilla when you use themes. And also, try clicking the button with the down arrow on it in the “Add Bookmark” window. It's a great feature.

• Written on 11 February 2004 & posted at 11:23 AM.
• There are 23 comments.
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Oh, no! Mozilla Firebird is no more. What's that? It's been renamed to Firefox? And version 0.8 is out? Wow, that is pretty great.


I don't know about you, but I'm going to go download it right now. I'm actually not all that pleased that it comes with an installation program now — I like doing things manually — but the new features sound sweet. The fact that it will no longer mess up .wmv downloads is enough to warrant the download by itself.

• Written on 09 February 2004 & posted at 01:20 PM.
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I'm definitely starting to think that my pickle jar has too many rocks in it. My life has, lately, been crazy-go-nuts. It seems that whenever I finish doing one obligation, something else comes up immediately. It's an unpleasant routine — finish work, fall asleep in an exhausted manner, wake up, go to NDP voting thing, go home, work on school, fall asleep, go to school, go to to work, go to sleep...arg! It's driving me nuts.

Therefore, according to the unusual time management theory presented on A List Apart a while back, I think that I need to remove some rocks from my pickle jar. Unfortunately, all of the rocks are useful. Maybe I just have to shift them around a little bit.

Anyway, it's been a non-fun, non-interesting weekend. Work is uneventful tonight (as it was last night) as I train on the women's admitting side of the hospital. I spent my afternoon/evening tonight watching Southpark and digging through most of my journal entries here, fixing old, bad code (read: <b> and <i> tags, as well as <ul> tags used to indent text, before I knew they were for lists).

Eep. This entry is about to get incredibly geeky. If you plan on stopping at this point, at least read this hilarious event in history.

Continue reading “Too Many Rocks in the Pickle Jar”...

• Written on 08 February 2004 & posted at 03:03 AM.
• There are 15 comments.
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Today is the most fantastic day ever. I'm really having a good time, although I'm not sure why. I'm in an uber-fantastic mood (despite being in software engineering as I type this) and life is good. If it wasn't so windy outside, I'd even say the weather was nice.

The standard January thaw is about two weeks later — all of the snow is melting now, and it's unseasonably warm. This, unfortunately, leads to some tricky situations when it comes to walking. During days like this, it can be hard to tell what is ice and what is slush, and the way you walk on either type of terrain is vastly different. If you walk onto ice expecting slush, you'll fall on your ass. If you walk onto slush expecting ice, you might fall on your ass. It's a strange phenomenon, and yet another one of those fun Canadian quirks that we somehow manage to take pride in.

Speaking of pride, I think it would be stupid to skip discussion of the new gay marriage issue unfolding in Massachusetts. I find the entire topic interesting, because it's already been resolved (for the most part) in Canada. Looks like we're leading the pack here. I hope it ends in success, and Bushboy doesn't actually change the constitution to ban it. That would, after all, be the first constitutional ammendment to actually limit the rights of a particular group, instead of adding rights. Conservatives can be so backwards sometimes. Although I understand the “marriage is sacred” thing, I don't see why it really matters. Those people against gay marriage can just keep their heads in the sand, because it doesn't really affect them. Allowing gay marriage wouldn't make straight marriage any less real, and in fact, I find the entire division of gay marriage vs straight marriage ludicrous. A few words of advice: get over yourselves.

Anyway, tomorrow, I'll be heading to Access Nova Scotia (da daaa) to get my driver's license renewed. It's hard to believe that it's been five years already, and it's a bit frustrating since I've only been actively driving for about two years out of those five. Either way, at $60, it boils down to one dollar per month of driving, or three cents a day. I guess it's not that bad. And segwaying nicely into something else that's only one dollar per time period, I'll be picking up a box of disposable contact lenses tomorrow. It's $90 for a three month supply, so it's a dollar per day. There are two things motivating this purchase: first of all, I look my actual age when wearing contact lenses (versus my usually “hey, look, a fifteen year old at Dalhousie” look), and secondly, I'll be getting a new photo on my driver's license. The current photo, taken on my sixteenth birthday, is terrible for many reasons, not the least of which is the gigantic pair of glasses I'm wearing. They looked good at the time. Seriously.

Alas, I'm off to learn about state diagrams, which aren't exactly new information. If one was to call them by another name — their standard implementation, the finite state machine — I'd know all about them. However, he's using a different word, so I guess that means I should pay attention. Dear Mr. Professor: use a microphone.

• Written on 05 February 2004 & posted at 06:17 PM.
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Ah, what a day. February 2nd. Crappy. My software engineering group members and I discovered that our assignment, thought to be due Thursday, was due tomorrow. The groundhogs didn't agree, so spring is in limbro. And there are now photos of Janet Jackson's right tit flying around the Internet. I have but one question for the fine folks responsible for that screen capture: why?

Anyway, it's almost time for sleep, but I thought I'd post a rant on how stupid this entire day was. From drunk drivers careening through crowds of drunken sports fans to Georgia thinking about banning the word evolution in their schools. Wow. That's all I can say, just wow. These people deserve an award of some kind.

Anyway, if you want to move away from all this freaking insanity, I suggest you read up the American's Guide to Canada. It's interesting to find out just what isn't common between the two countries, and in particular, I found the fact that Smarties are different rather interesting. In particular, the bit about that damn purple soap Chiclet's gum they sell in mall quarter machines was great (in the “What Every Canadian Knows” section). Other great things of note: milk coming in plastic bags (this is unusual?), vinegar served with French fries (well, yeah!), and the classic line “...such a show that was on until recently was hosted by a very, very large woman (Rita McNeil).” Yes, that is a gigantic woman. In addition to this, it brings up some points of pride, such as the fact that the Hudson's Bay Company (the oldest in North America) was incorporated almost 334 years ago and will most likely never die. Go Bay.

Finally, regarding the flavours of potato chicks interested me. What is available in the States? Salt & vinegar is my favourite flavour right now, and as gross as it sounds, I'm happy the guacamole variety of Doritos is out here now. They're fantastic.

And I know this entry is long and weird and basically replicating a sizeable chunk of the other site, but Taylor et al, you've got to answer these questions:

1. People give distances in times, not miles. You don't? That's so weird.
2. Since 1989, all new cars have had to be fitted with daytime running lights. Um...not so in the States?
3. Movie theatres have one night a week ... where they charge matinee prices. Again, not so?

That is all.

• Written on 02 February 2004 & posted at 10:58 PM.
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Ah, February. This is a month known for several things of worthy note. This includes, but is not limited to, Groundhog Day (which is today, incidentally, and according to Punxsutawney Phil, we get more winter), the simultaneous birthdays of myself and Steve, Keddy's birthday one week later, and the day of romance in honor of a decapitated saint. The weather sucks too, as I recall, but it's also African Heritage Month in Nova Scotia.

I just thought I would take the time to observe this; Africa has played an important part in the history of the world, not just because of that whole slavery hoopla. Ancient Egypt, arguably the greatest of the ancient civilizations, was African. Everyone's favorite superhero, Jesus, was also most likely black, and the world would not have elevator's were it not for an African-American named Alexander Mills. How about pencil sharpeners, lawn mowers, mops, and refridgerators? Thank John Love, Joseph Smith, Thomas Steward, and John Standard. I'm seriously: they're all black, and you never hear about it. The Logicalthinker's page page is full of useful tidbits like this. Also, the Black Inventors has a list of more modern creations and their associated patents where applicable. Interesting.

Anyway, happy African Heritage Month.

Note: February is a magickal month, or at least that's the best reason I can explain how overloaded it is. Not only is it African Heritage Month, but it is also termite awareness month, sinus pain awareness month, domestic violence awareness month, disability employment awareness month, low vision awareness month...I mean, come on! Spread out the friggin' awareness. Bah. Happy awareness, at any rate.

• Written on 02 February 2004 & posted at 11:29 AM.
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