Month: May 2006

Another sign I'm getting old

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I reinstalled my home laptop last night. I spent an inordinate amount of time watching a series of progress bars ramp up to 100% while a few gigs of software was copied.

I can't help but think back at the first time I installed my computer from scratch. Michel and I spent hours installing Windows 3.1 on my first computer in the basement of my parents' house. The endless tedium of switching diskettes. I knew every switch and setting and what it did, and how to optimize the last byte of memory on that computer. And I loved every moment of it. I was in nerd heaven.

Last night was just boring as hell. Something I had to do because the Windows Genuine Advantage popups and reminders and logos finally got me pissed off enough to reinstall everything properly. Plop a CD and listen to it spin. I still know most of the switches and settings, but I just can't be bothered these days. What used to be fun, trying to get everything working just right and as smoothly as possible, is now just trying to get everything working. The video drivers wouldn't install (but they've always been a bit flaky) and I couldn't get the advanced power management controls drivers to load to enable hibernation.

I managed to get everything working this morning before work, but that's not the point. The thrill is gone. I've done it so many times now that it's lost all appeal.

At least it's done now and should be stable for the next year or so.

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Confetti

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Katy and I went see Confetti last night (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427089/)

Most excellent movie. A wedding magazine is holding a “most original themed wedding” contest with 3 couples getting married on the same day at the same venue. One is a tennis-themed wedding, one is a naturist wedding and one is a big production singing/dancing wedding.

The whole thing was completely unscripted and they just improvised around the basic concept. It was brilliant. The actors didnt know about what everybody else was up to and were even encouraged not to talk to some of the other actors before filming so it would really be the first time that they met them once the camera started rolling, to keep it more spontaneous.


And the gay wedding planners were just too cute :)

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Big brother strikes again

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This makes me ill.

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity. The agency's goal is “to create a database of every call ever made” within the nation's borders.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm

Also in the news-that-just-makes-me-cringe category, a quote from none other than Dubya himself:

“Brother Jeb would be great president”

Uh huh… let me break out the tinfoil hat now…

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worries, indeed

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Been a very bleh day today.

Not sleeping well because I have weird dreams. My stressometer (i.e. my left shoulder) is telling me that I need to unwind or muscles and sinew will soon start to pop and hurt again. Hit the gym today, which helped a bit, but what will help more is when things start settling down.

Way things have been though, that won't be for a while, if ever. I guess that's called life.

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weekend update

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This weekend, I mowed the grass.

Simple sentence, 6 little words, but I'm damned proud of them. For a few reasons, really. The major one is that I have a rather huge phobia of flying/stinging insects, so spending 2 hours behind a lawnmower is a big achievement for me. Second reason is that the “grass” we needed to mow could better be classified as “hay” at the very least and “a fucking wild mess” with little effort.

When clover is a foot tall, it doesn't really qualify as grass anymore.

It's a damned good thing we bought a petrol lawnmower because no electric one could have been able to deal with that lot. Even then, we abused the shit out of the poor thing. The engine kept cutting off because the grass was too dense, we had to empty the grass catcher every 20 feet (at the end, I just left it off and left the clippings where they fell) and at one point, the drive belt fell off because the axle was too clogged with tangled weeds. Even then, we didn't even attempt to clear out the last 30 feet of the garden because we didn't feel like fighting 2-foot tall stinging nettles. We'll need to hire a petrol strimmer (i.e. a gas-powered weed-wacker for you North Americans) to clear out that jungle, but that can wait for another weekend.

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That's a PITA

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I think I'll have to put my trip to canada on hold. I had planned to travel from the 20th to the 27th. However, the Home Office has put a damper on those plans.

We sent in an application for a certificate of approval, which is required to start the wedding registration process. I need that because I'm an evil Canadian and I want to get married on British soil. The forms say that it takes between 3 weeks and 3 months to get it. However, the form says that I can ask for my passport back if I need to travel.

What the form doesn't say is that it takes 10 working days to get my documents back if I send a fax to ask for them (so it's not even guaranteed that I get the flippin' passport back if I send the fax in today). The request *can* be expedited, but there's still no guarantee that I'll have my passport back on the day I need to travel.

Also, asking for my passport invalidates my ongoing request, which means that I'll need to submit a new CoA form when I come back. This also means that I'll have to pay another as the application fee is not refundable.

What I'm thinking of doing is waiting until the last possible moment to see if I get my application through. In theory, they say that it should be resolved within 3 weeks (and it'll be 3 weeks this Friday). If I'm lucky, I'll get everything back in time. If I see that it's not going to arrive, I'll call Air Canada and have my travel dates pushed back. The tickets are not refundable but there is a slight fee to have the dates pushed back (we did this with katy when she came in otcober 2004).

All signs point that this is going to be one of them weeks…

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Mind the duck shit :)

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Katy and I went to a BBQ last night at a coworker's place in North Cambridge. Surrounded by chickens and horses, we ate hogfat and Russian Cornish pasties. All in good fun. We ended up home rather late and it was hard getting out of bed this morning.

While dragging my feet to the cafeteria to grab a cup of coffee, I ran across my favourite fowl couple, Grace and Clarckson. In the cafeteria.

  

Apparently, it's quite common to see ducks wander in in the summertime, pick at the crumbs on the floor and waddle out.

Sa-weet!

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Sometimes, I hate people

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I hate having to deal with people by email.

Sadly, it's a big part of my job and also the only way I have to deal with some people. It's too easy to avoid answering emails you don't want to deal with. I know I'm guilty of it myself, but I do make an effort to at least give a token reply.

This is a public service announcement broadcast: if you really want to piss me off, ignore my emails. Especially if it's important. Even more so if it'll only take a yes or a no answer to send me on my merry way.

</sarcasm>

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