ShinyPlasticBag

Good news, Planet Me: it looks like my iPod situation is almost resolved. It's not as instant as I was hoping, but it's pretty close: I gave Apple a call yesterday to see if I could just cancel the order and get a refund (so I could go buy an iPod in person). The customer service rep that answered the phone was named Lela.

I know I'm a dork. I know that. But even I was embarassed by myself as the first thing that popped into my head when she introduced herself was, well, Lela: Futurama. How could I not? It set me back by a few seconds as I mentally chastised myself (“Self! You're such a dork! Don't blog about this!”). Regaining my composure, however, I was able to explain my situation and get some help. The news was good: she said that if I only wanted a non-engraved iPod, it could ship much faster. Better yet, I wouldn't even have to wait for the typo'd iPod to arrive, because she'd just have FedEx stop the shipment. Then, she actually did it. I am very, very happy: the old iPod turned around today, and my new one should arrive on Monday. I also bought some iPod socks, because I'm a huge dork. I'm so excited.

Anyway...I'm pretty alarmed by the possibility of gas prices jumping up yet again. Driving is almost unaffordable at this point — all recreational cruising has been eliminated from my routine. I've heard rumours that it might go up to the $1.20 region, and that's no good. How fast can the hydrogen economy arrive? I've been predicting the end of oil for years (which is what this feels like), but I never thought it would happen so suddenly. The discouraging part is that the price of oil negatively affects the price of everything else. If you think about it from an outsider's perspective, of course, it's a pretty strange thing to base your entire economy on: ancient dead plant and animal soup. Strange...

• Written on 30 August 2005 & posted at 01:58 PM.
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Well, I did a drastic thing today: I formatted my hard drive. I think I've blogged about this ordeal before. Formatting any laptop sucks, and this was worse than usual since I didn't use the factory install disk (I wanted Windows XP Professional, not Home). However, it all works, and the only thing I forgot was “My Documents”. Fortunately, it being August, there was nothing important in there. I therefore consider the operation a success. I'm currently setting up IIS and getting ready to install PHP. Woot.

Anyway, allow me to recap my past few days. Yesterday morning, I went ahead and ordered an iPod. I did it at work, since it was incredibly quiet there. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do it online, so I called their hotline and went through the process, spelling out in great detail that I wanted the word “neutrino” engraved on the back (hey, it's free, and yes, I realize I'm a dork). I confirmed twice. I made some sort of comment about massless subatomic particles. Anyway, when I got the traditional “thanks for giving us money” email, it said...“neuprino”. Headbash. I franctically called back to point out the typo, but no, no, no, you can't fix problems like that in the sales department, even if it's only been 30 seconds. “You need to speak to the service department, which opens in two and a half hours.” they told me.

Despite being absolutely certain that it would be too late by then, I resigned myself to staying up until 9:30 and calling Apple's service department. Lo and behold, Stacy, customer service representative, informed me that the item had already been shipped. (Apparently, turn-around time on iPod orders is under thirty minutes.) So, now, I have to wait for the “neuprino” iPod to arrived, mail it back, and then get the proper one from them. My shipping time official tripled. That being said, hey, I'm getting an iPod. Woot!

Unfortunately, whilst waiting for the service center to open, I ate some funky Chinese food leftovers, and they caused me to feel unhappy and not sleep. This, in turn, caused work Thursday night to be utterly terrible, so I called in sick tonight, too. I still didn't feel 100% and there's nothing worse than feeling unwell on a backshift. Hence the mad formatting rush since I rarely have such large blocks of uninterrupted time.

Anyway, PHP is done downloading, so I'm off to install that. Cheers.

• Written on 27 August 2005 & posted at 12:53 AM.
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Well, I've made up my mind: I'm buying an iPod. I've been thinking about this for months and months and months (actually, the original Want goes back to late 2003). For the longest time, I berated the iPod as an overpriced (but very pretty) piece of junk. There are a few things, however, that have led me to change my mind. I want to get my logic out here so people can tell me if I'm being stupid about anything.

Before I begin, however, I should put this out there: Apollo and I are either going to go bowling or mini-golfing at some point in the next week (most likely Thursday). Do any random folks feel like joining us? It might be fun to show up at The Putting Edge with a large herd of people. Just a thought.

Continue reading “Talk Me Out of an iPod”...

• Written on 23 August 2005 & posted at 10:44 PM.
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Things I have learned about working backshifts, #7834978: working more than three nights in a row is detrimental to your sense of time and place. I'm plodding my way through shift five of five here, to be followed by by two days of idleness and then another five nights. Unfortunately, two days off between sets of backshifts is more like a day and a half, once you take into account the sleeping that immediately follows working a night.

It's fairly steady, although not quite busy. The night is moving pretty quick, which is good, since I'm definitely ready to sleep for a few decades. On the number-of-interruptions-per-blog-entry-o-meter, we're currently at about one. Which is pretty good, since I'm currently, technically, supposed to be working, and yet manage to blog.

Anyway, in an unusual twist of events, I took in some culture this evening by attending a performance of Pericles by Shakespeare by the Sea (warning: icky Flash-based site). Despite a general dislike of Shakespeare by myself, I thought it was about time that I finally went to a performance and was invited to do so by Alex (the freelance hippie rock star, not the baby). I had a pretty good time. Her zany hippie friends were less hippie than expected, and Point Pleasant Park is just about my favourite spot in town, so it was a fun evening. I definitely would like to catch another performance sometime.

Eep, the interrupt-o-meter is buzzing again, so I should finish this off. Uh, what's everyone doing this week?

• Written on 22 August 2005 & posted at 02:04 AM.
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Wow. Something that I never, ever expected in a million years has finally happened: the creaky, broken old chairs at my registration desk have been replaced. With fancy ones. They're big and cushy and would appear to actually be genuinely new, as opposed to new-to-us like everything else is down here. The part I like best is the extra-wide arm rests that they feature, which are huge and comfy. I am le happy.

Anyway, I'm at work. This is night two of five (followed by two days off and then another five on). I'm actually doing quite well thus far, but I know that come Sunday, I'll be ready to explode. Work is great and backshifts are fine, but working five in a row really has a detrimental effect on one's mental health. And speaking of detrimental effects on one's mental health, I sent my beloved laptop away for repair today.

Ion has made a rattle-y fan noise since just about day one. It's driven me nuts, but I haven't wanted to send it away just because of that. However, the rattle has gotten more infuriating as of late and the wrist rest area has been getting really hot, so I figured that it was time to get that looked into. Also, there's a bright spot in the monitor which, curiously, is in the exact same spot and is the same size and shape as the Dell logo embedded into the reverse side of the screen. Hopefully, everything can be fixed quickly and I'll have it back in time for school, which reminds me: I need help getting organized.

Every year, I promise myself that I will keep on top of things with school and not get stressed out. Every year, though, on the first day of school, I walk towards the bus and think to myself that this is the last truly stress-free time period for the semester. I need to be organized, so do any of you have any tips? I'm open to just about anything, short of sacrificing farm animals to aide my aura or what have you. Assume that I'm starting from square one and blast away.

• Written on 19 August 2005 & posted at 01:44 AM.
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As we move firmly into the second half of August, I'm beginning to lament the impending demise of this summer. As usual, I don't feel like I've taken advantage of the lovely weather, or done all of the exciting things I could have done. I haven't gone swimming, or hiked in the woods, or spent much time in the backyard. I've basically just slept, which is something I manage to accomplish year round. The sun doesn't rise as early and the nights are already getting colder. It's very depressing, even though fall is generally my favourite season of the year.

I was playing around in Paint Shop Pro on my lunch break (creating a high resolution version of the shinyPlasticBag “burst” at the top of this site) and ended up making a pretty decent wallpaper to honour the setting sun. I christen it “shine on”. Oh, I also have a text-free version of it. It's not particularly complex, but I like it. The original photograph is from my recent trip to Denver and was taken at Pikes Peak. I like it — it's mellow and has a relaxing flair to it. My usual complaints about the quality of my camera remain, of course, but that's to be expected.

Anyway, it's 4:27 am and I really don't have anything else to add. Until we meet again.

• Written on 18 August 2005 & posted at 04:29 AM.
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O, work, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...uh...yeah, it's really just the money. Sigh. I'm at work this evening, and currently covering the ward clerk desk whilst Tracy is off on her lunch break (bonus: I get to go next). Things are actually fairly calm in here tonight, although I'd prefer not to jinx it.

So, here I am. I'm continuing to love my PortableFirefox installation, which allows me to gleefully BrowseHappy even when I'm on a mismanaged corporate PC. I'm reading up on various GTD things in the vain hope that I can remain on the ball once school starts. I finally registered for my courses today. Although I have to get professor permission, there's one course that seems particularly interesting: community outreach. We take on some sort of project for a local charity or non-profit and do it. I'm not really sure what that would entail, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it's an enjoyable and worthwhile course. Plus, I'm always trying to boost my Hippie points. Gotta get good karma at some point, right?

Anyway, I should probably stop blogging and look busy (even though typing makes one look busy regardless of the pursuit at hand). You know how it is. Of course, I can't forget one final detail:

• Written on 15 August 2005 & posted at 06:07 PM.
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Warning: The following entry is very long. (Gotta make up for lost time!)

Diggity damn, I'm back on home turf. After fairly a long term Internet drought, I can finally update this site. My attempt at breaking my trip down on a day by day basis failed for two reasons: firstly, a lack of reliable Internet access made it hard to stay on the ball, and two, we stopped doing epic adventures. The remaining four days were just as much fun, but were more mellow (ie, basically wandering around Denver on our own). So, here's a recap of salient unblogged events before I being The Great Complaining.

• On Tuesday, we went to the Downtown Aquarium, which Mom had loved on her previous trip. It was very nice, but had a distinct money-grabbing air to it that sort of put a damper on the whole experience. This was a day of a whole lot of walking. Ick.
• On Wednesday, Mom and I made an attempt to visit the US Mint, but found that by the time we got there (around 9:45 am), most of the tours had filled up. We aborted the attempted tour and headed over to the Museum of Nature & Science, which I loved (of course). I'm such a dork sometimes.
• On Thursday, we made another run at the Mint (with Joey this time). We arrived at 6:50 am and succeeded in getting a good tour slot (9:00 am tour). Although it was interesting, it was very short. After the tour, we milled around for a while and eventually went to Six Flags. Unfortunately, we didn't have as much time to spend there as I would have liked, but it was fun nonetheless. That being said, they play “We Like to Party!” by the Vengaboys endlessly there, and it was Christian Youth Day (gag/groan/point/laugh). We got the wander the park to the sound of a Christian rock band saying “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” over and over again with varying patterns of guitar for the first half hour or so.

Anyway, we're back home now. The flights were...well, sort of crappy. The actual flights had nothing wrong with them, but we only had an hour between Denver-to-Toronto landing and Toronto-to-Halifax taking off. During that time period, we had to get our luggage, go through customs, and bus from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1. Arriving at our gate with two minutes to spare, we found out that we had been told the completely wrong gate number and hoofed it down the hallway. Although we (barely) made it, it turns out that our luggage did not. It's still somewhere between here and Toronto, expected (hopefully) sometime this weekend, along with that of about a dozen fellow travellers. You know, I'm not mad at Air Canada for messing up our luggage: I'm mad at Air Canada for scheduling such a rushed stopover to cause the problem in the first place. And I'm not really all that mad anyway.

Continue reading “(Petr)O Canada!”...

• Written on 13 August 2005 & posted at 12:37 AM.
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There's only two things a traveller really needs: a passport and a steady supply of batteries. Yesterday, I discovered how important the battery part was, since about half of the day avoided photographic documentation. My camera loves the juice, and the sort of places we visited did not offer themselves to battery supply. Hmm.

Anyway, yesterday, we visited Garden of the Gods. This is a national park that is composed of beautiful sandstone rock formations. They were definitely awe-inspiring, and I went picture crazy (I took a total of 187 photos yesterday). They jut out of the ground almost straight up and their colouring really contrasts with the sky. It's definitely a beautiful place. I made an attempt at taking a 3D picture whilst there (although I chose a somewhat boring spot). To see it, cross your eyes until the two black circles under the photos overlap, and then focus your eyes on the overlapped photographs. It works pretty well.

Continue reading “Denver, Day Three: Batteries”...

• Written on 08 August 2005 & posted at 05:05 PM.
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Arg, I'm very stuffed up because of Donna's two cats. Despite my best efforts, they absolutely love hanging out on my stuff. If you look up, every now and then a furball will float by — it's a bit disconcerting. Anyway.

Yesterday, we headed into the mountains to see the sights. It was insanely high and very cold — you could see snow on the mountains, in fact. Since it's August, there's not much, but there's still some. I have several pictures where I'm looking unhappy in front of beautiful panoramas. I hate pictures of me.

On the way back, we stopped into a great little place in a strange little town. Despite being itty bitty (probably smaller than Chester), it had some very cool restaraunts on its main strip. This included a neat little deli called 2 Brothers Deli where we had lunch.

Continue reading “Denver, Day Two: Mountains”...

• Written on 07 August 2005 & posted at 01:28 PM.
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Well, folks, I made it here alive: I'm writing to you live from lovely downtown Denver, Colorado. It's wonderfully warm and dry and the city is arranged in a perfectly logical grid. I couldn't be happier.

Despite waking up yesterday at a ridiculously early hour to leave (left home at 4 am for a 6 am flight), the flights down weren't bad. Due to the snafu on Wednesday that delayed our trip, they bumped us up to executive class for the first leg of our trip (Halifax to Toronto). The seats were huge and they served us copious amounts of coffee. I was definitely impressed. Although we were just in normal class for the next part of the trip, it was good too. My laptop battery held out and I remained amused until we arrived in Denver at about 11 am Denver time (2 pm Halifax).

Donna met us at the airport in a trendy Nissan and left us to our own devices for the afternoon (since she had to go back to work). Despite being utterly drained from the eight hour commute, we decided to venture out to get some food and get acquainted with the area. Upon arriving in Denny's, what did I find on the menu? Tiny burgers! Anyone who's seen Harold & Kumar go to Whitecastle could not resist such a temptation: they were delicious. I wish I could bring some back.

Continue reading “Colorado, Day One: Yuppies”...

• Written on 06 August 2005 & posted at 01:40 PM.
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Alrighty, tomorrow morning, I'm off to Denver for a week. I've packed (translation: slammed my clothes into a suitcase) and loaded up (with movies and games to keep me amused on the flight) and mentally prepared myself for the voyage. I'll get to visit an Apple Store, a science museum, a huge aquarium, and the Wolfgang Puck store (for some self-heating coffee!).

So, you won't be able to call me until sometime next Tuesday. Maybe I'll call you, but maybe not (it depends on various factors). I will, however, answer emails and keep my blog up to date, so don't be a stranger. I'll need things to keep me company.

Anyway, I've got to get to bed soon due to my exceedingly early morning. Our flight leaves at 9:30, but there's all that check in stuff to do and you're supposed to arrive a few hours early. Ugh. I'm very thankful that there's a Tim Horton's right next to the departure gate.

• Written on 02 August 2005 & posted at 10:44 PM.
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It's August 1st — you know what that means! Happy Natal Day! This is the “birthday” of our city, although almost certainly not the correct date. The first of August is a generic civil holiday in Canada: all across the land, it's a day off that's celebrated for different reasons and under different names. It's one of those strange things that seems so well thought out that I can't imagine how they came up with the idea in the first place.

I'm currently vegging out on the couch and listening to Mary Ann's random samplings of music wafting up from the basement. I'm having one of those low output days where I don't really have a whole lot going on — I think I'm going to the fireworks tonight, however. They're being launched off of George's Island (last night having been at Lake Banook and the previous night at the MacDonald Bridge), which should be quite a sight. Rogan is in town and is going with me; anyone else interested in accompanying can call. He's at some sort of boat race thingy today — people have the strangest interests.

Anyway, I'm leaving for my trip to Denver on Wednesday morning, so I should probably start packing (I've also been asked to collect the many pine cones on our front yard into a garbage receptacle of some sort). I hate coniferous trees sometimes.

• Written on 01 August 2005 & posted at 02:10 PM.
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