House

Music: Caustic - The Bible, The Bottle, The Bomb (Beta Virus Mix)

I'm sucking at this again. I think I need a job where I can play more freely on the internet without fear that IT isn't tracking every keystroke that I make. Thats a story for another day when I'm not typing on my computer at work. (IT rocks!) [kiss ass.]

I would like to appologize for not updating and for not commenting but it seems to be one of those trends thats going around. If find that over time, 90% of the blogs that I start reading go into a sort of hiatus and people seem to fall of the face of the planet. I'm down to 2 blogs that update on a regular basis and I read each of those everyday in my feed reader. 

Today marks the 2nd morning in our new house. We actually moved in 4 days ahead of schedule because of an unexpected visit from some family with a truck and trailer. They didn't have much to move other than the furniture as we put 200km on the car carting stuff back and forth from the apartment to the house. 

Its so nice to wake up in a place that you can finally call your own, its a really great feeling that I don't think I will ever get tired of. The best part about all of this is that we can start buying things for the house and start a life of our own without having to pay some skeezy guy money to live in a rat hole. (Though our last place really wasn't that bad.)

We've already gotten a new shower head, a new light fixture for the kitchen, switched all of the lights to energy efficient ones (there's a panel of 6 lights in the bathroom above the mirror, its the equivilent of 480 Watts of light but only uses 100W).

We even manged to have our first pet incident. In the 2nd bedroom closet there is a panel missing by some of the pipes but was covered over with a piece of plywood that didn't quite cover the hole. The new hold is about 4 feet up in the air. We had some totes in the closet which proved to be the right height for her. Needless to say she jumped down into the hole to see what was around, the hole has piping that runs from the hotwater tank, through the bathroom to the kitchen. We found her at the other end of the house by the hotwater tank. Cats are just crazy.

WTFriday

Who lets this happen?

Seriously? Asshole shouldn't be allowed to have kids.

How is it that someone can have a child but some people are deemed unfit to own a dog?


In other news:

Fraudsters in other countries are abusing the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) new national do not call list.

This list is similar to that of what is found in the USA, a person registers and a telemarketer is not allowed to call you. Simple. Instead of allowing telemarketers to have easy access to the list, the CRTC decided that they'd sell it to them. Instead of checking credentials, they sell it to anyone.

For $50 you can buy a copy of the do not call list for Toronto which has 600,000 telephone numbers on it from people in Europe and the US trying to trick people out of their money.


(Maybe this will be a new thing on here.)

Funny story

This is a little rant about the project that I have been working on for the past little while, the same project that sent me to Asia twice last year. I am not working on it much any more because it was a complete and total disorganized disaster. The people in charge here have been working on the project by themselves with it closely tucked into their shirt.

This is how bad it was. When I was in Asia one of the clients asked me a question about the requirements for a single module. I looked at her and scratched my head because I did not even know what that module was and what it was responsible for. Thats how bad it was.

Back to the present. Its January 9th, the project "super visor" (I prefer to call him the "ruiner") came up with a list of things that needed to be done by the 15th and given to the client which would close off this portion and allow the company to get paid. [Have I mentioned that because the "ruiner" is not allowing anyone else to help out on some parts the project is already 7 months late?] Which is fine, whatever. It was 4 business days that they gave us to work on things. On the list were about 22 items. I had 5 items that I needed to do. There was some programming and some reports that I needed to create/fix and then give to the client. Which is fine, I had created about 12 reports for the client already so I was familiar with what needed to be done and the software.

I worked my ass off doing all of the things that I had on the list and getting them done. Hell, I even finished by morning of the 14th.

We had a meeting yesterday to go over everything. It was the 21st and there are still 11 items on the list that aren't even started! Like wtf? How does that happen? Here I was working hard for nothing. How can the company be satisfied with the way this project is going when nothing gets done at all? We promise the client something and then don't deliver? Its no wonder the guy who is over there now has called/emailed the boss with complaints from the clients because nothing is as its supposed to be.

The best point of all. This isn't really our fault. Well not completely. This project is based upon a features document which outlines all of the components of the project, it should have never been signed. When the project was awarded, they didn't really know what they wanted. They only knew that they wanted a system to help streamline their business processes.

Fine.

They have a webmapping component. The document states that they required the ability to print from the web both graphical and textual information on A4 paper. Great. It already does that. Now that they've had time to think about it, they want the web mapping to print based on a template and started yelling for that. If they had of told us 6 months ago about this, then it would be different.

Do you know how hard it is to complete something when someone keeps giving you new stuff to add on top of it?

What would happen if...

Music: Silverchair - Young Modern

Canada or the United States adopted the same concept that the Isle of Man is proposing for their citizens. As some background the Isle is in the English Channel halfway between England and Ireland, its self-governing, has its own taxes, flag, anthem, etc.

The government there has been in negotiations with the big 5 (or 4) record labels to see if they can work something out. Their goal is to charge their 80,000 residents a blanket tax every year in exchange... for unlimited downloading. 

Thats right, they want to legalize file-sharing sites for music in the country with a blanket tax. Now before you start thinking, remember that in Canada there has been a tax/surcharge on every single piece of blank media on the market. This includes blank VHS tapes, cassette tapes, CDs, DVDs, and even some MP3 players. This money then goes to the record labels as payment for people who tape things off the radio and television (since thats piracy or something).

What if the USA adopted this policy?

Think about it for a minute. There is about 300 million people in the country. (I'm estimating) If the government charged everyone $2 in a "internet tax", the government would be able to give the record companies $600 MILLION dollars a year to help offset the cost of what they're "losing" for not thinking proactively and getting stuck in old technology (re: American automakers). Think of the trouble this would save.

What if I don't download songs? So. The RIAA has successfully sued people who don't own computers so that doesn't matter.

What happens if more people start downloading music? The RIAA needs a swift kick in the ass to get on the band wagon that people want to own the music they buy and not just rent it.

What about the artists, do they get any money? No. The artists make on average a nickle or dime on every $20 CD sold. Most multiplatinum sellers don't care, they make their money from touring and merchandise. (Kid Rock did an interview in Canada in the 90s and they asked him about downloading, his response (summarized): "I'm rich, why should I care?")

I personally think it would be a great idea. I'd willingly pay for that.

Now if only the government would step in and tell the cable company to stop charging me $90 just so I can watch 16 HD channels...

Sources: here, here, here, and everywhere

More on the island here.

F*cking Cold

Music: Modest Mouse - Float On

Its bloody fucking cold out today. Like -34 degrees Celsius  (which is -29 for my American friends). Thats cold enough to give you frost bite within 2 or 3 minutes of over exposure. Don't forget about the windchill too, that makes it even fucking colder!

Get this, in the Arctic today is SEVEN degrees outside, in the fucking arctic. How the hell does that happen? The arctic is a thousand miles north of here and its bloody warmer up there than here. 

To make matters worse I went to work today wearing a short sleeve shirt. Normally I'm the kind of person who wears shorts around the house in the winter because I'm just a perfect temperature, I'm shivering at work right now because I'm just that cold. Its really not a good day to do just about anything.

I feel bad for the cats at home, I hope I left them some heat on today, I'm sure the heat will kick in enough for them to stay warm, they do like to cuddle though.

On a side note, and a bit of good news to get back in from the cold. We're buying a house.

A real, house. Well, a mini-home (what some people to the south call a trailer, but it doesn't have wheels so it really doesn't make sense). Regardless, my wife's friend got offered a job a month ago in another province and needs to sell her home quickly, so she's giving us an amazing deal on it. 

We're really stoked to be finally done renting and throwing money in someone else's pocket. We've been doing that for years now, and we've got nothing to show for it, apart from empty pockets. We take possession the first of February and will spend a week cleaning and moving boxes before taking the furniture and beds to officially move in. 

We're really surprised that we can get this house since our old mortgage lady, who we'll refer to as C1 kept telling us that we had too much debt for our income. We went to see a new lady and everything was perfect regarding our debt, it really didn't make much sense how we can go to one extreme to another with everything like that.

Woo! Now to build a fire under my desk to keep warm.

Its The New Year

Music: Korn - Twist

I figure I would start the new year off by getting back to this again. I like writing, I like sharing opinions on the world and my current surroundings, the problem is finding the time to actually put things to the keyboard. I should develope some sort or mechanism where I can blog from my mind.

I'm sure I could find a few takers. :)

Lets start with the obvious, what are some of my "resolutions"?

• Stop smoking. Done. (I don't smoke.)
• Cut pop and sugar out of my life. (Well after the tub of gummy "things" is finished at work.)
• Start paying down debt. (To coincide with this: cancel credit cards)
• Save for a home.
• Start paying back student loan.

There, thats some of the goals that I have for this coming year. They're mostly simple things, and more importantly: things that I know I can accomplish. I always found it funny that people would reach for the sky when I was younger, people would tell me what they wanted to do and it would be these obscure things that they knew they couldn't finish.

Why do people do that to themselves?

I'm not really sure what my favourite resolution that I've heard over the years is. I'd have to think of that one for a while.

*****

A fellow blogger (here) went through the top songs on their iPod, I thought it was such a great idea that I would do the same thing. Turns out my musical taste is so varied that my top song has a play count of TWENTY. What the heck!? I've listened to 27,000 songs over the past 2 years (I use a site called Last.fm to track my music habits).

I need to be a little more obscessed with songs. (The list is slightly different than that appears in my iTunes, if I have a song twice in iTunes I have two counters, last.fm will track it once).

Regardless, here is the top 10.

1 Rammstein – Sehnsucht 20
2 Funkstörung – Untitled 18
2 Elysian Fields – Lady in the Lake 18
2 Arcade Fire – No Cars Go 18
5 Primus – John the Fisherman 17
5 Kerli – Walking on Air 17
7 Blur – The Universal 15
8 Buckethead – Untitled 1 14
9 Buckethead – Untitled 4 13
9 Die Krupps – To the Hilt 13
9 Lily Allen – Smile 13
9 Elysian Fields – Off or Out 13

I'm very surprised that the Kaiser Chiefs song "Never Miss a Beat" isn't on this list, but its only got a count of 11. Maybe next time. ;)

Here is the counter from Itunes:

13 - My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult - Dimentia 66 (Grayarea's Loaded on Lincoln Mix)
11 - Unter Null - Desire
11 - Butt Trumpet - I'm Ugly and I don't know Why
11 - Get Set Go - Suicide
11 - Kaiser Chiefs - Never Miss a Beat
11 - Kerli - Walking on Air
11 - KiEw - Gabriel
11 - KMFDM - These Boots Are Made for Walkin
11 - Nine Inch Nails - My Violent Heart
11 - Tegan & Sara - Time Running

Forever and six days...

Music: Tricky - Crazy Claws

Its been ages since I've last said anything of importance here, my last post really doesn't count since I only said that I had a flippin' Wii. I think that due to time contraints (meaning I can't spend too much time on my laptop or my desktop at work will get cranky), I'll do this up in a good old fashioned bulleted list.

• Up here we have a show called The Hour thats hosted by George S (I say S because his name is Stroumboulopoulos), he was talking to Gene Simmons about a band he signed from Canada thats just awesome [paraphrasing Gene], and I checked them out. I must agree with him on this, I'm generally not a fan of hip-hop, but this is great. Down With Webster
• I've been working my butt off on a project that I've been doing for my brother-in-law. With the length of time that its taken me to get this far, I might be able to complete it by late Spring.
  
• A new good-friend at work, or are they a good new friend, regardless - they're a new friend of ours who are getting married sometime in 2009, morethan likely the fall who invited us to go with them to the Carribbean after they get married.
• Which means that I need to loose some weight between now and then, its -18 C out today which means no jogging, what can I do instead? I'm too cheap to join a gym.
  
• I'm going to be taking all of the money that I get for working on stuff for my brother in law and putting it towards this trip, both of us would really love to have the chance to go again.
• We've been talking about going on a cruise or something in the winter, but this is better because its with friends.
• I've been dragged back into working on the project that sent me to Asia in the Spring/Summer. I don't mind the project, the work or the clients - the main problem, which seems to be getting worse is the project manager who seems to enjoy working 16 horus a day without requesting assistance or when forced to accept help still refuses to have the time to sit with someone to show them what they need.
• I'm just happy I won't be dealing with the project by the end of the week.
• I've been going through some of the photos that I've taken in the past year and have been organizing them to upload to Flickr. Next to be added, pictures from Mexico.
• Mario Kart Wii with the wheel is a little hard on the joints, especially just holding it there waiting for something to happen or start the race.
• The puppy has been growing leaps and bounds, he's still smaller than our cats (and I don't think he'll actually get bigger then them anyways.)
• There have been lots of geeky things going on in the house lately: I've setup our extra laptop to act as a little media center and a "pseudo-PVR", and something else that I've forgotten.
  
• We had our first real snow of the year two days ago, and the snow is still on the ground, guess this means that winter has officially started. Joy.
  
• I took the camera out in the snow while we had the dog out playing. It looked as though he was wearing a sweater.
• My wife is going in for day surgery tomorrow to get her Tonsils taken out. She's been having issues with swollen throats several times a year for the past 4 years and finally managed to convince a Dr to take them out.
• She's starting to get nervous.
• I think she'll do fine.

I guess that ends the update for the next month or something, though I sometimes get the urge to write and end up filling this up in a week or so.