Looking at the world, in rose coloured glasses...

Now, I've never really understood the meaning of that phrase. My take on it gives me the impression that people actually like walking around the world drunk to make it seem more interesting. Don't get me wrong, its quite a novel idea to attempt to see the world in a different light. Then again it might be better to see the world in a different light while intoxicated.

That rose coloured light could turn out to be a little bit skewed after the amount of alcohol that would need to be consumed in some instances.

My wife and I traditionally are good with money (*giggles*) and yesterday on a whim we decided to splurge on a new purchase. We managed to pickup a new TV. Thats right, we've joined the ranks of all of the other geeks out there and bought a new widescreen tv. It looks strikingly similar to the one pictured below.


As soon as we got it home the first thing that I did was to turn it on and toss in a widescreen movie. Transformers seemed like an excellent choice, I tossed it in and kicked up my feet to see in greater detail.

Turns out my wife is becoming a widescreen junky now too. She was at home watching a regular fullscreen movie today, and realized how much better it is on our tv.

There were other TVs there when we were looking at it, but a 32" TV is more than enough for most people, and quite frankly paying $1000 for a television? People need to have their head examined.

I love my TV. If I wasn't married I'd marry the TV and have little surround sound children.

















http://www.amazon.com/JL421-Badonkadonk-Land-Cruiser-Tank/dp/B00067F1CE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=miscellaneous&qid=1196440713&sr=8-2

Official Retardation...

I have just recently come up with a fantastic idea for the names of our children, my wife isn't that thrilled but that will be discussed in a minute. Typically people find a name that they like and they stick to it, most of the time to the displeasure of their significant other.

My wife and I have been pretty amicable when devising names for the children we haven't conceived. Normally, the names we come up with are standard names, Zachary, Stephen, etc. I sometimes like to stray from the norm and suggest names that I find cool like Vladamir. Its a really strong name, I can't help it.

I'm generally not a fan of my name, Albert, you know it does kind of suck. But then again, when I have an idea like this I warm up to my name even more.

The world knows I'm a dork, and I want my children to know I'm a dork as well. What about naming them after me? That is generally a noble tradition that has been handed down for generations of wealthy people in the past. How can I take that tradition and geekify it?

Albert , version 2.0 - That is what I will name my first son.
Albert, version 3.0 - will be the name of my second child.

I mentioned this to my wife as a humorous note to see how well she'd take it. As you may have guessed, she didn't share my enthusiasm for the venture.

Until I can win her over, I'm going to slowly rename our cats from Puddles and Jacques to Cat 1.0 and Cat 1.1.

Ah, the life of a dork.

Where'd the time go...

It turns out that if you don't use your time off wisely it just kind of disappears on you. Case in point: I recently had my standard 4 days off of work and realized last night that I had to come back into work this morning. But then again when you have a stomach flu for the better part of that time, all bets of doing anything are completely off.

Normally, I'd have something intelligent to say about a worldly event then again, I am brain-dead. Depending on who you would ask this might be a regular occurrence.

Buy Nothing...

Today is Buy Nothing Day.

To celebrate, I'm going to go nowhere, and spend absolutely nothing today. Mind you I won't have much of a choice since I'm working the 12 hour day shift. Still, I completely support this venture and I encourage you to become educated and participate in this as well.

Also, something else I support is Buy Nothing Christmas.

Once the first of December hits you will not find me anywhere near the stores in any of the malls, anywhere. People are generally, unforgiving, cranky and panic stricken. Too much emphasis is placed on finding someone the "perfect" gift that will make them the happiest. Isn't Christmas about family, and religion? When did it get converted into a commercial extravaganza?

For extra bonus points, each of these campaigns was started by a Canadian organization called AdBusters.

Creative Writing...

Its a weird world in which we live. Its strange to think that we remember so much of the things we've forgotten.

Judging by the profoundly confused look in my own face, I may have to explain the above statements.

I have been carrying around 2 stories in various stages of completeness for the better part of 2 years. These stories, as I've explained before, are ones that I've started at a different time in my life, at a time when there were endless possibilities for what I wanted to do and the time that I had to spend doing it.

I sat down today, taking some time out of my day from work, and begin to reread these master pieces of horror and macabre. Within the first 10 minutes of reading the pages I was immersed back into the world that I had created, the plot came flooding back into me, the little nuances of the characters became the focus of my attention. I flipped to the end to read what I had concluded about the ending, and deciding that it needed to be re-written. Based upon a few notes that I had included in previous pages I had formulated an entire alternate ending, a complete plot twist from how it was originally intended to conclude.

I have begun to notice that I have not enjoyed a movie, book, comic, tv series where every single loose end is tied and you know exactly what happens with the characters after the cameras are turned off. Take the movie “Children of Men” where the movie ends with the characters on a boat, waiting to be rescued. That is the kind of thing that interests me, if you don't what happens next then you are bound to be intrigued and formulate your own opinions with your friends and co-workers. That is the main point of a story if you ask me, to have people remember it and talk about it among themselves spreading the word.

That is the goal of my writing.

Results

I guess I should mention that I did pass my exam yesterday morning. I scored a 914 / 1000.

Thats all for now, its looking like a slow day at work so I might be able to create something fun with my time. I'll let you know how it turns out.

70-290...

I'm moments away from writing my first MCSE exam for the company that I'm working for. And I'm nervous as F@CK. I don't know why I'm so nervous, more to the point I don't know why I'm writing the Microsoft exam in the first place, other than its required for all employees in my position.

I'm 2 days away from wiping out both windows installations on my home computers and installing Ubuntu Linux. I'm tired of denying myself the pleasure of using something thats free and doesn't require me or prompt me to validate or prove that I own the system. Screw that.

I recently saw a blog that was part of the Blogs of Note - PureDistortion who holds a Red Hat linux certification, which in all honesty has more appeal to me than the Microsoft stuff that they're making me write here. I might talk to my boss later on and see if they'll let me become Linux certified.

Nerves suck. They make you forget things. Such as my lunch, and my security pass. Which are both sitting safely and securely on the counter in my apartment. (Though, I've made a plan to run home after I've finished my exam to get them without telling any one.) The other thing about nerves is the fact that they make you doubt yourself, personally I'd like to know as I'm going along, question by question which ones I got wrong and what the correct answers are. This shit about getting the exam mark back at the end, thats just a waste of time for me. I want to know which ones I got wrong.

Alright, time to do some cramming.

T-Minus 1 hour.

Moativated...

As I sit here at work, I'm just barely noticing that I haven't written anything of half-descent quality in a while. While I have not lacked the creative prowess to write a bit of fiction, I have been lacking the time to sit down and begin to compose anything. There are a few ideas about what I have to say in the future.

I've also had the thought of splitting my blog into two parts, one for creating and writing random story ideas, while the other would be used solely for my day-to-day musings. Then I run into the dilemma of: which will get to keep this area? Would you want to see the day to day stuff here? Or the creations? Personally I like the title for creative things, while the URL for the blog would be good for day to day stuff.

I'm open to suggestions.

Destination Unknown....

or known, as I know where I am travelling to.

So, tomorrow is going to be a giant whirlwind of an adventure. The sun will be barely rising over the horizon when I will be climbing into bed after a long night at work.

The main goal will be to become extremely well rested so that the drive to Cape Breton in the early afternoon will be as pleasant as possible. Judging from the past few days I think we should be doing alright to dealing with my crankiness, well that is until we hit the causeway then I can't guarantee that I will be at all pleasant. I feel bad for my wife, I really am going to try my hardest to be not cranky at all.

The other goal will be to see how long I will be on the Island before I order pizza. There seems to be a running family tradition that involves quickly ordering pizza from the local pizza shop immediately upon entering the house. My brother currently owns the record for pizza consumption for eating 7 pizzas over a period of 8 days when he was home a year ago. Personally, I'd enjoy beating that record while being home for 3 days, but I don't know that my wife and wallet will let me do that. Too bad really, its good pizza.

The best part about the trip will be to see the scenery that we'll get to see along the way. Driving along the water through the highway in Cape Breton, though it'll be dark well before we reach the island though.

There are only a few more hours to go until I am finished work for the day, and its an extra special night as well because its the last night shift for the next 3 weeks. (Thank frig.)

I have reached the point of no return right now where I'm rambling and talking incoherently while blankly staring at the corner of the screen with a semi-glazed look in my eyes. This would be a perfect time for some RedBull if it wasn't 5am.... mmmm caffeine.

Sporadic nordic

I have been slacking with this thing lately, I don't know that I've posted much in the last few days apart from some scattered narratives, but then again I never said this would be a daily blog.

A few things have been happening around here lately that I would like to share, first and foremost, I get to meet my nephew for the first time in a couple of days. My sister flew home with him last week. The wife and I are going to be driving up on Friday for a couple of wonderful days to see them. Its going to be a long drive home, not that a 6 hour drive isn't easy to handle, the problem is I'm going to be getting off a night shift at 7am, and we'll be hitting the road at 2pm.

Have I mentioned how much I miss being in Cape Breton? If there could be one place that I could be right this very moment (that wasn't home in bed with my wife) it would be in Cape Breton. It really wouldn't matter where exactly I was there, just as long as my feet were touching the soil. There is something relaxing about the Cape, that I just can't quite put my finger on, the only thing that I'm sure of is that it comforts me.

~~~~

The other thing that happened which is fairly important. There was a death in our family recently. It was a welcome addition to our family when it arrived a few months ago. Being tiny was to its advantage as it could climb into the smallest places and wait. It had the cutest little orange stripe running down its front, it would basically glow when it was happy. I'm going to miss my external harddrive and all of its wondrous contents. This will give me an opportunity to clean out most of the crap that I've been pack-ratting on it.

RIP External Drive

~~~~~

I have this sudden creative urge to write. These last couple of days I've been finding more and more that people who do the same thing that I'm doing, end up getting book deals and write scripts. Now, I'm now where near saying I write as good as them, But I think it would be really, really cool if at one point that it could happen to me too.

When I came to work today I pulled the two shells of stories that I have been working on out of my other bag and tossed them in with my laptop. It would be nice if I could get the changes that I have marked on the pages completed so that I can continue working on my draft and eventually publish it (probably on my site) for everyone to read.

.... It would be cool though.... I have many dreams, but lets just find out how much ambition I have.

Opening your doors...

Hello, my name is AY@tes and I have a problem. I have recently scummed to an addiction to free software. Normally this would be met with a multitude of lawsuits from companies alleging that I have obtained their software illegally. This is not the case. What I am referring to specifically is OpenSource software, the kind of software that is totally free of charge.

I'm not stating that I am completely against all things Microsoft Windows related as many of the openSource software have been ported to Windows as well. As a certified Microsoft Professional, you would think that my motives and desires would be lead toward all things Windows related. I should devote an entire entry to spouting the benefits of using their software, ... lets not and pretend we didn't as no one would want to read it.

I do not mind paying for the software the I use if I am going to benefit from using it. Then again, as a employed person with a job and a plethora of background education you would also think that I would want to be frugal with my money and save it for the things that are important, such as making payments on my Student loan and getting a new LCD television. As I am a certified professional, if I get caught with any pirated software (read: “obtained from a friend software”) then I can loose my certification and not be eligible for any future certifications which would hurt my ability to gain work experience.

There are lots of benefits to switching to an OSS (OpenSource Software) solution, but it can be time consuming to set up initially. Although, once you have a computer configured with the setup and configuration that you need then the system is extremely stable and reliable.

Many people don't realize that most of the websites they connect to daily, and the search engines they use are completely Linux based. Why is this? Because its stable and reliable. Its as simple as that.

I would like to ensure that my employable status remains for as long as humanly possible, so I am going to begin my transition away from proprietary software in the coming weeks. [That an using free software is cool.] Although it will be a long and difficult process to say the least.

This will entail a great many things that I will have to sacrifice. The first and foremost will be the use of my Adobe Lightroom software for organizing and managing my photography. I can go back to using Google's Picasa but I have tasted the brilliance that they are offering and I don't know that I can part with it. My only other option would be to buy a Mac laptop which isn't in the affordability range right now.

Migrating away from iTunes I had thought would be particularly hard, but there is a great alternative for Linux (Banshee) that works great with iPods and will even import your library as well. So that saves me hundreds of hours for re-rating the songs, I like it when things are that much easier.

You can do a search online and find hundreds or thousands of open source software which function as great alternatives to all of the software that you pay hundreds of dollars for. There may not be as many of the features in the OpenSource version, but 90% of the daily functions you will require will be there.

I also read recently that a small company had switched to using OpenOffice for their office computers, which were 60 in total, not a lot by any means. They had called Microsoft and asked for a quote on getting the latest version of Office, which is 2007. Can you guess the cost of putting the software on all of their computers? It was $15,000 can you believe that? I can.

Here is a great article about how Linux can be great for use with a Small Business:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/15298/1023/

With all of that said, (and said in a very scattered and diluted manner, I should work on my writing if I ever want to get better, that can happen another day as I really don't want to mess with it right now. Its late and I need to get back to working.) it will be a long and difficult process but with the many headaches that users are having with Vista I can see many more people having to install Linux on their computers in an attempt to have something that functions.

[Again, I'm making an attempt to keep from bitching out Windows as it could last for days.]

an incidental theory of chaos

I was sitting around this evening watching a few movies sitting in the living room (if you wanted to know I was watching Crank and Sherrybaby) when I just started writing a few scattered images and words that were popping into my mind. Some may make some sense while others have been added for the sheer simplicity that they provide. There are no hidden images or meaning in this, there is only a small story about life and how everything may tie together.

overwhelmed and consumed by a mountain of disdain and disappointment. laying to the left in a crumpled heap on the floor is a piece of paper that I once held close to my heart. torn and tattered it sits there waiting for someone to reach over and touch its soft texture. the feeling is still there after holding it, the pressure of the edges rubbing against the fingertips as if it were still pressed against the skin. dropped to the floor, rolling around the room like a butterfly navigating through the forest. Delicate beauty uncovered and naked for all of the world to see. exposed to the elements and blowing with the breeze floating through the air. scattered around the area are a few of the stray images of the past that reflect the great things in life. past present and future can be found here, all things have their beginning and their end in this room; sometimes towards the beginning without even realizing it seeds are planted. growing and germinating life is abundant all around. the simplicity of starting over putting you feet firmly in a single location and having life spread all around. one step forward never yields two steps back unless it is willed. bad things only happen to those that want it. the winds of change have been blowing working its way into your life in an attempt to cause chaos. in theory, the strongest foundation will survive the strongest storm.

Wishing upon a star....

Did you ever have one of those realizations where suddenly everything that was in your life finally made sense; where you can close you eyes and suddenly see a solution to a problem that has been plaguing you... I wish I had one of those realizations right now.

Things would seem so much clearer if I could suddenly see past the hurdles in life. Although I suppose that if I had such realizations other people would want me to help them out with their problems so that I wouldn't have such an unfair advantage against them.

At one point or another there was something important that I had to say regarding this post. I really like the tricks that my mind plays on me at 3am, working nights is the greatest thing on the planet next to actually sleeping.

My mind has been playing terrible tricks on me lately, waking me up after only getting 4 hours of sleep during the day. Telling me that I'm hungry when I'm really just tired. Its not fair.

I really should work on making a coherent entry at some point or another..... aaahhh screw it.

Cloak of invisibility

At one point in time I thought about doing many things with this site, which not only included posting some of my writing but also posting some reviews of some kind. Whether it was in the form of movie or music reviews, I thought about doing that sort of thing, but then I realized that there was a good chance that no one would want to know what I thought of the new KiEw album or the latest indie flick that I saw. In order to appeal to more people I'd have to discuss the latest and greatest things that I are in the theatres and on the radio... but I wouldn't want to do that so you'll have to be satisfied with my over tired ramblings

Speaking of which.... [yeah, I a) lost my train of thought, b) lost my motivation to continue my sentence.]

Options....

Pick and choose your poison.

Sitting here looking around the barren landscape, tattered papers laying on the floor. A breeze creeps around the corner emanating from a nearby open window. The corner of the papers lift off the ground showing its delicate underside; the faded words are showing a glimpse as to the knowledge that they contained. The words are bleached from sitting idly on the floor.

The area seems to have been abandoned some years ago, people have fled abandoning everything that was dear to them. Looking at the archaic items scattered on the tables you attempt to understand how people had lived before they had fled. The air is stale and devoid of all scent, dust covers your progress forward and is beginning to hide where you had come from.

It seems like eternity since a person has stepped foot into this area. Large pockets of dust have started to collect on top of the machines that were once the cutting edge technology. They have been forgotten; turned into relics that no one cares about.

After careful observation, it appears as though not everyone had fled initially. Some brave individuals seem to have stayed behind, you notice that there are stains on the floor indicating some kind of struggle had taken place in time after the event. They seem to have attempted to rebuild their society in this location in an attempt to maintain stability.

Looking to the left there is a single pole standing in the middle of a large open area that was once reserved for the most important gatherings. It has been reduced to a scene of desperation and violence. The remnants of a once noble piece of furniture have been reduced to embers in a vain attempt at fighting off the cold that has ravaged this area.

The pole has scene better days as well, once the focal point of presentations it was briefly turned into a sacrificial shrine as desperate people had turned to violent rituals to make the suffering and pain stop. The most revered and important individuals were bound to the pole and ritualistically beaten in an attempt to keep the evil spirits from entering into their new homes. From the state of the surrounding landscape it looks as though this did not help to ease their suffering.

Needless violence was determined to be the cause and the solution to their plight. How can a society take a step back in time in an attempt to solve their problems? Haven't we learned from the mistakes of the past....

.... What the !?

9:52am -- I'm still awake, for some reason I'm still awake and sitting on the couch here at home, personally I think I'm slowly going insane, but thats not really news now is it? Alas... there does appear to be an end to this madness though as the painter guy, who is the person I"m waiting for is just about finished. Although I'm *this* close to actually going into the back room to nap....

I like this painter, he just sanded stuff off the wall and then he wiped it up... so cool! To top it all off he came into the house and took off his shoes. I know small minds are amused by small things, and exhausted minds sleep on the floor in the back room with the cats. I'm impressed.

Can you tell... ?

That I'm bored at work? They say that sleep deprivation makes people go crazy. I'm almost willing to test that theory, the only point that I'm not looking forward to is the fact that I actually have to utilize part of my brain for my job. I only say part because most of the time I'm barely conscious while I look at the screen to begin with.

Its now 3:30am and I'm quite content with my progress to this point. I've had one can of RedBull and I'm not feeling the effect quite yet, maybe if I shotgun the other can I might be able to stay conscious on the way home in the morning. Although, I'm doing better than a colleague of mine who has been napping off and on for the better part of 45 minutes. For some reason I just can't bring myself to sleep at work, I'd end up snoring a lot.

... some other stuff happened.... your guess would be as good as mine as to what it was. For fun lets say it involved juggling, scissor kicks to the groin, swine, and automatic machinery reinvented. That could make for an interesting story if I had capable mental powers.

5:16am -- some of my coworkers are attempting to solve a problem concerning a dozen questions sent in by one particular user. I have knowledge in this particular area and have been speaking with them offering them suggestions and answers. There is one member of the team who I'm not sure really enjoys my involvement in answering questions of this nature as he has been deemed the expert in this area. Its kind of frustrating to see your answers fall on one set of deaf ears only to be systematically reworded and branded as a fresh new answer. I feel like I'm in marketing and a colleague just stole a pitch for a billion dollar ad campaign.... I should stop watching so many movies.

5:49am -- I have come to the realization that my previous statement regarding not sleeping at work is a total crock of sh*t. I'm just too proud to sleep at work thats it. Plain and simply put, damn me and my pride.... also, the aforementioned colleague who was napping is full on sleep at the moment complete with snoring sound effects. That reminds me of something that I heard on the radio this morning, did you realize that of the 4 people running around screaming in my mind at the moment, that there is only one of them who is capable of using a pen?

Let the mind f*ckery begin....

This is my first actual night shift while in posession of this bemusing site of wonderment that I call a 'blome' (my new made up word for 'blog home', and since thats not really a word either.... ). What I'm starting to say before being wildly interrupted by my other inner voice is that the writings here, however frequent tonight, may be a litle crazed and off topic. I've been awake for about 18 hours to this point and must survive another 6 hours of being awake and smarter than the people I talk to.

This should be entertaining considering I'm not feeling particularly smart at the moment.

Normally, I'd come up with some sort of creative musings about the world around me and how if you stare at the corners/sides of the monitor long enough you can actually see the refresh bar going down the screen. But none of that interests me at the moment, I'm more concerned with getting my eyes uncrossed and having some of the pain in my knee dissipate so that I can walk properly.

Again, with the wild tangents from my original topic, not that there was much of an original topic to begin with. Speaking of which, has anyone seen my orange?

By the way, if you see my friend Denise can you tell her that I'm mad a her for thinking about going away for work before I can get a chance to go home and see her for the first time in 10 years. It would be nice if everyone could gang up on her... I'd give you her email address but its too complicated for my mind at this stage in the game...

Fallen in a hole...

I seemed to have fallen off of the planet lately. I guess that would explain the lack of content and updates to my site as well as the lack of sleep... scratch that. That would explain the 10 hours of sleep a night and the feeling of utter exhaustion.

This past weekend we moved into our new apartment, which wasn't very far from our last place, two doors up to be exact.

I guess that explains the aching muscles and sore joints from going up and down the stairs two-hundred times or so. Though the only blessing that we had was the fact that we had our dear, little hatchback. This weekend we essentially treated it like a small pickup truck, carting boxes, odds-n-ends, and anything else that would fit in it up the road. Its getting a good rest now thats for sure.

The great thing is we managed to get our bed up the stairs (after nearly having to sell it when we moved in), as well as a few of the larger items that wouldn't fit in the car, outside and over to the new place before the rain started. Although we did start to move the last of the items as it was raining.

As the rain started my friend Stephen and I took a little break to chat and drank a beer to wait out the rain and move more things. I was even nice enough to give my landlord a beer while he was putting up some of the hardware on our cupboards. I felt bad though because Stephen wouldn't let us give him a drive home in the rain and instead wanted to bike home in the pouring rain.

The new apartment is totally amazing. I'll take some pictures to post tomorrow sometime (if my brain recovers) to share. The painter is coming back tomorrow to fix up some stuff that he screwed up the first time, now the only problem that I can see with that is I'm going to be want to sleeping when he's there and thats going to piss me off if I can't sleep. Jerk better be quick fixing up the bedroom or I'm going to be pretty peeved....