October 29: 0x19

Janet and Katie turned 25 today — congratulations, ladies. I hope your birthday/s is/are awesome, which, of course, they will be, since you'll have my company after work. I am excited to play with — I mean, watch you play with — the stuff you're getting from ThinkGeek. :)
Not much is going on for me right now — the office is cold, as usual, and that's keeping me from feeling very productive. I need to get myself some winter accouterments — gloves and a toque. The usual.

I had an awesome weekend, most of which was spent exploring Leopard. There was some drama in me getting it, because Purolator screwed up the delivery (and then tried to blame it for me, saying that I had given an invalid address, which I had not) — I had to go pick it up). Anyway, Leopard is beautiful and amazing and it was definitely worth the wait. It's neat to see some of the cool things that I saw at WWDC 06 finally make it into the OS. I'm really excited to do some programming with it, now that Objective C has become a bit friendlier. I think the highlight of the whole thing for me is probably Quick Look., which just blows my mind. It's just...so...fast. Since I'm a relative Mac newbie, this is my first Mac OS X upgrade, and having been on Windows before that, this is really only the second upgrade since Windows 2000 -->> XP. I love exploring new software.

Sigh. Such a nerd. Anyway, enough of that. Happy birthday again, Janet and Katie.

October 24: Corn maize and BIO

Howdy, world. I had an awesome weekend and a busy week (okay, fine, I'm lazy) that's prevented me from getting my blog on. Saturday, we did the traditional (second year in a row) haunted corn maze run. We went to the maze in Truro, and had a decent crew. I happen to remember the head count from the Irving Big Stop eating, so here's hoping I manage to not miss anyone in my roll call: Amanda, Beth, Cheryl, Christine, Danny, Jamie, Janet, Katie, Keddy, Nick, and me (obviously). Eleven. It was fun, despite minor snafus — Amanda losing and then finding her phone (mud-encrusted), Beth losing her awesome rainbow hat. Plus, any even that features eating at a Big Stop is a win.

(Aside: You know what would make corn mazes more awesome? Referring to them as corn maizes, thus making an awesome pun. Seriously. You'd easily double, maybe even triple, enjoyment amonst nerds. That's a non-trivial increase, and it only costs a single extra letter.)

Apollo and I as sea creatures Anyway, the BIO had an open house over the weekend, and I dragged Apollo along to see what it was like. I had heard that there was a touch tank, and that pretty much sold me on it. It was pretty cool — all kinds of neat gadgets and displays full of ocean-related information. They had a very cool map of the floor of the harbour that showed a bunch of shipwrecks I had never heard of, including but not limited to a ferry that caught fire and sunk. I was under the impression our ferries had a perfect history. Overall, it was very cool, and totally free. It's a neat thing for them to do. I mean...touch tanks!!!!111ROFLZ.

Anyway, David has just pointed out that this is a very long entry that's light on the David. So, David David David, and I'll talk to you next time. David.

October 16: Pumpkin Regatta

Alex & I getting rained n There's a fun event in Windsor that I had never heard of before: the Pumpkin Regatta. They take giant (1000+ pounds) pumpkins, hollow them out, and use them as boats to race across a lake. It's retarded, and we went to it on Sunday. (We consisted of myself, Katie, baby Alex, Keddy, and Christine.) It was awesome (although it rained a bit, and we weren't too prepared)! There were about forty pumpkins, all elaborately decorated — one looked like a football, for instance, while another looked like an eyeball. The best part was watching people try to get into them without getting dunked (many of said people were unsuccessful in this endeavour). It was pretty clear to us from the start that #2, an old guy in a relatively simple pumpkin, was going to take first place, and he did. Anyhoo, there are some pictures on their web site, but as of right now, they don't have any from 2007. It gives you a good feel of the event, though.

Anyway, in other fun news, I am totally loaded up on IRN-BRU. How sweet is this?


Man I love my some IRN-BRU — sweet nectar of the gods. I really wish they'd start selling it everywhere...it's getting better, though (Superstores have it pretty regularly).

October 10: Zomg sick

Bleh, am I ever sick! I have the flu or something and am currently at death's door...I stayed home from work and everything. The highlight of my day so far? Managing to watch eight episodes of Dilbert before noon. Man. The flu sucks.

The weirdest thing happened this weekend: I was walking down to Alderney Gate to pick up a book from the library (The Elements of Style) when I heard tires screeching and a thunk. I looked over to the source and saw a teenage-ish guy in mid-air, with a well-at-least-he's-not-dead “Ow, fuck!” as he hit the ground. He'd been flying down Ochterloney Street on a bike or something through an amber light and was passing by the last batch of waiting cars when the light changed. A driver obviously didn't notice the biker who was skirting the sane cut off point for going through the intersection, floored it, and nailed the kid. I called 911 and waited for the cops to arrive while a big group of people gathered around him. He was okay, apparently (and busily using his phone) but I think he broke a leg.

The good news from this past week is that I'm finally rid of my cursed phone. I hated that piece of crap. I've switched to Rogers (same number) and I now have a Nokia 5300, which I quite like. It syncs up to my Mac with Bluetooth and exchanges contacts and calendar entries, and it has a pretty decent camera. I love it, and now Katie and I are same-phone-buddies. It rocks.

Anyway, I'm off to let the excessive amounts of Sinutab in my system put me to sleep ridiculously early. Until we meet again!

October 04: 2 Gigs of RAM

About This Mac

Man, I remember the first time I had a hard drive that big. I feel old. Anyway...RAM is on for $34 per gig at Robotnik.

October 03: Home and Knees

Happy October, blog. I'm back from California and finding things a bit chilly. Although California wasn't as scorchingly hot as we had expected it to be, it was still infinitely warmer than Nova Scotia in October. When we stepped out of the airport on Monday night, my inner monologue actually said “Oh, right. Cold. I forgot about that.” Anyway, now that I'm adjusted again, it's nice. I love Fall. All the leaves are happily changing colours and pumpkins have started appearing in public. I am very excited for pumpkin time.

In other news, Mom had her knee surgery today. Hopefully, this will solve the remaining problems from her ski injury once and for all. It was down in the valley, so I took the day off work to drive her there and back. I'm at her place right now, watching Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (score) while she sleeps off the pain killers. Everything went well, apparently, which is good. Go surgery.

Anyway, that's about all I have to say for now. Tentatively, pumpkin gathering is set for the weekend of the 20th, for any who are able to attend. Also, we need to do a haunted corn maze again — anyone have any suggestions?