Highlights

Cytoplasmic Writings - March 2006 Archives

Didn't write too many things down in March. It was a busy month where I started working on several different parts of the site. I've managed to put a few things up but I'm still having the occasional writer's block.

Thursday, March 30th 2006

Well, those two annoying guys are still in my class. I've just learned to ignore them and tried instead to concentrate solely on the training. Which is proving difficult at times. Just one more day and then I'm back to work...what the hell am I thinking?!!! I'm going to miss all the free food that's been served to us. We're spoiled at training. Monday we had chicken wraps, Tuesday was sandwiches with veggies & dip, Wednesday was chicken fingers and fries and today was Julienne salad. The last time I had a Julienne salad was at Mel's in Toronto with the boys. Smoked meat sandwiches and smoked meat poutine....drool....

Because of all this food this week, I've felt bloated. I think I've managed to gain a few pounds. I have gone to Goodlife this week so it isn't too bad, but still. My dad was really nice to me the last time I was home. He said I was skinnier which is a good sign right? I haven't weighed myself in ages so I think I'm still 180 lbs but I could be less. I guess I should weigh myself next time I'm at Goodlife.

The Farmer's Market is gonna have more stands soon and that means cheap vegetables! I can't wait to get those peppers on sale. I'm gonna start up the bbq and roast those peppers baby! Maybe some roastede eggplant and mushrooms and I've got myself an awesome burger. Of course, I'll have my striploin steaks but I've really learned to enjoy vegetables. It's all about how you prepare them. It's also a lot cheaper. Twenty bucks worth of vegetables and fruit will last me two weeks. Add that to 10 bucks of meat for the two weeks and I'm set. This life of being frugal is getting good. I have to go find re-runs of The Frugal Chef.

I'm back in Toronto this week after 3 weeks in Waterloo again. See Jenn for the weekend and watch V for Vendetta. Pick up some comic books and go do some groceries as well. It should be a fun weekend especially with the nice weather. See you all in April!

DRAGONCRYPT 3/30/2006 11:04:54 PM

Tuesday, March 28th 2006

Normally I don't like to write about stuff from work because it might be bad but I just had to write about a few things. As you may have surmised, my last rant about Apple and Techno-idiots was work-related. There's a continuation of both stories that I'd like to talk about because it's just too frustrating not to.

Well it was another day of an Apple lover saying how much better of a company Apple is than Microsoft. How that with an iMac, it gives you possibilities you never would have thought of. It's so small it's going to revolutionize the computer industry. People can buy iMini and put Windows on it for cheap. WTF is this guy on? LSD? Has he even looked at the new machines offered by Dell or HP? How small they are? And they're cheap too, they'll even run Windows BETTER than on the iMac because they were built for Windows. LOL. If I wanted to I could order a small footprint case and build you a computer. As we pointed this out to him, this guy goes into a tirade about how whenever he points out that Apple "innovates" all these products people start Apple bashing. LOL. This guy apparantly has been spending too much time with his Apple computer and listening to the Apple propaganda. A true tech enthusiast would know that there is no such thing as the perfect machine or the "best" machine out there. But apparantly, this guy thinks Apple has created it. He also forgets that Apple computers are still a niche market. Niche. When we try to get this tunnel-vision afflicted moron (he is, IMHO) to perhaps get his facts right, he starts whining about Apple-bashing. Too bad he didn't listen to the part where we all said Apple computers. I didn't like this guy before and I have no respect for someone who acts like a baby when asked to defend his so called "facts". Perhaps he'll cry tomorrow when he tries to bring up another great Apple innovation and the instructor shoots him down. That would be fun.

My other beef is with the idiot who asks questions about every stupid thing without actually doing the exercises. Read the instructions and get it done and it will most likely answer your questions dumbass...Then he acts all smart by trying to relate every technical term to another technical term. So the server sends out notifications to other servers to pick up a new entry in the DNS list..."So it's like Push notification?" WTF?!!!! Shut the fuck up already. Push technology is a fucking catch-phrase. I really can't believe that people like this exist in the technical support world. I truly think there is a shortage of good tech support people. Makes me wonder why I haven't been more aggressive in getting promoted so I can fire these people.

The worst part of these two eggheads is that they take up the entire class time. There was a little bit of irony today when the instructor talked about the 20/80 rule and how you can apply it to anything. Well, 20 percent of the class (the two eggheads) are taking up most of the class time while 80 percent of the class is just sitting there bored out of their minds. Kudos to the instructor for being so patient. I'm normally a patient guy (not lately) but I would have kicked these two guys out. Or at least told them to talk about this stuff outside of class time.

Anyways, stay tuned for more idiotic behaviour from these two as I've got three more days with them....maybe I do want to get back on the phones....

DRAGONCRYPT 3/29/2006 12:41:14 AM

Monday, March 27th 2006

I love Apple computers. Well I love the old Apple computers. I haven't used one of the new Apples with OS X but I've seen a few in action. Apples have always been great for a few things but they have tried desparately to gain market share. Now Apple has some die-hard users who think everything else sucks. There are even users that say that Apple is a great innovater and Steve Jobs is a creative genius. I have to disagree with that point. Name the last thing that Apple innovated? iPod...MP3 players were already out for years. iMac? Old concept with a new package. iTunes? online stores have been around since the Internet began. OS X? It's based on UNIX, so it's not "New" but it's possibly the closest thing to innovation that Apple has done in recent years. To all those die-hard Apple fans, Apple has good business models and an amazing market machine. They cater to the yuppy population that apparantly is easily won over with jazzy commericals and fancy designs. To call Steve Jobs a creative genius is an insult to creative geniuses everywhere. He's a good business guy who has a huge ego. I would have to say that Microsoft is more of an innovator than Apple is. I don't like Microsoft but they're willing to try new ideas(to gain market share) and you have to respect them for that. One of Apple's biggest allies has been it's "underdog" status. Well, with it's recent switchover to Intel (PowerPCs were awesome!), this underdog has just taken another step closer to become another PC manufacturer. You want market share? Maybe you should open up your system to third parties so they can help you expand your business. Anyways, the reason I brought this up is that a lot of people spend more time hating Microsoft that they forget that other companies are bad too. Don't get me wrong, if I had the cash, I would still buy an Apple computer, but just for certain projects. My everyday computer would still be a PC. To those Apple lovers out there. Let me know when Apple does indeed produce an innovative product and I'll glady change my opinion about this.

Another thing I've noticed lately is how under-qualified a lot of technical people are. By all means, I think I'm in the middle of the group with my technical knowledge. I consider myself a person who can easily understand technology but I do not excel greatly in it. However, excelling in technology doesn't necessarily make you the best employee either. If you lack the social skills and you conflict with your co-workers, you would be considered a risk, moreso than an asset to the company. Then there are those who walk around "thinking" they're the shit and they look down at all the "simple" users. Well...those "simple" users PAY you. Without them, you'd be living in your mother's basement with your right-hand as your girlfriend. These "simple" users are your bread and butter and the fact is, if you don't treat them better, guess what? Some other guy with the same knowledge as you who possesses much friendlier attitude will just steal your customers away. Customers may be stupid but only the ignorant ones can be blamed for not learning. The real idiots are the tech-saavy people who fail to teach the "simple" users on how to properly use technology. If you can't teach someone how to rename a file in Windows then perhaps you're more of the idiot than you think the user is.

DRAGONCRYPT 3/27/2006 10:32:59 PM

Sunday, March 26th 2006

I'm excited this week. I'm getting training for my MCSE and it's paid for by RIM. Awesome! Not only do I get paid to learn, I get free lunch as well! I'm really looking forward to this course. I haven't really touched Microsoft Server 2003 and I would really like to know more about it. It's also a change from the daily job which will be good. A whole group of my co-workers are heading to Halifax as the seed group for the new Halifax Contact Center. I wish I could go, but I don't think I could leave Jenn for that long. It sucks enough as it is with me living in Waterloo.

I've also decided not to play CCSA softball this year. NYCBC has only one senior team and I'd actually like to spend my weekends doing other things. The majority of the players I know are already gone and I don't want to take any spot that some of the new young players would like. Maybe next year I'll get back into softball but for now, I'll settle for softball at RIM. I've got big plans for the summer. I want to go fishing and/or camping, have a road trip to the States, spend more time at festivals in Toronto and just enjoy life. I've been stuck inside too long and I really haven't done anything so summer is the time baby!

I wanted to share this link with everyone. It's a compendium of all the Isuzu Gemini commercials from the 80's. This is the link. These are all professional drivers and there are no computer graphics here at all. The precision driving in some of these commercials is indeed impressive.

Glad to hear that the two Canadian hostages in Iraq have been rescued. I think many had lost hope that they were alive after the American was found shot dead. In other news, Canada is ending their peacekeeping mission in the Golan Heights. With such a large contigent in Afghanistan, it was a matter of time before our other commitments would be affected. Finally, it seems the Leafs are indeed going to be out of the playoffs. Unless the Leafs win almost all of the 11 games remaining and the four teams ahead of them lost most of their remaining games, I don't see any chance of the Leafs getting a playoff spot. Well, there's always next year.

April is around the corner and the weather is warming up. Time to shed the winter clothing and put on the spring jackets! Let the BBQ season begin!

DRAGONCRYPT 3/27/2006 12:10:10 AM

Tuesday, March 21st 2006

Spent the weekend in Waterloo trying to get some work done for this site. It was difficult to do any work when working from 3:30 to midnight. I kept trying to write material but I was experiencing a creative block. Luckily the creative block was overcome at the beginning of the weekend. I decided to get the Star Wars section of the site up and running. I had to download and edit all the Star Wars LEGO pictures for the site. Man, that was a lot of work. My eyes kept going weird when I was working on it. My monitors are a little wavy due to the lack of power in my room so staring at the screen sometimes gets me a little disorientated. Doesn't help either that my monitor is still messed up from when I removed the anti-glare coating. Sigh.

Anyways, I realized over the weekend that I was putting the Haloscan logo and counter on every page. I figured it wasn't really needed so I removed it from most of the site except for the main screens and where I use comments. So it took me three days to finish off the Star Wars LEGO section. The good thing is that it's not a section that I have to update too much. Just the occasional product spotlight change is all. I'm working the early morning shift this week so it's been a little taxing to the system but it's allowing me to get work done after work.

Man, have you ever had stale coffee? My Mocha Java coffee has been around for too long so now it tastes a little stale. Well, I can't afford to get more coffee right now so I have to get used to the coffee. It's better than Tim Horton's though I have been drinking some of that stuff lately. It's "Roll Up The Rim To Win" time. I haven't won anything yet but a co-worker managed to get the free BBQ prize. Damn her!

The first day of Spring was Monday. It sure didn't feel like Spring. Though I see in the 7 day forecast that this coming weekend will be rainy. Let's hope the Spring has indeed arrived. Our natural gas heating bill was fairly expensive. We did all these things to keep the house warmer and it turned out February was our most expensive month. How does that happen? I'm definitely happy that we had a mild winter. With the higher than normal natural gas prices, it could have been really bad for us this year. Let's hope when they remove the hydro subsidy this summer that the prices don't skyrocket again. I still have to buy some fans for creating the air circulation we need in the summer. No central air conditioning could be the end of me...

So has anyone watched "V for Vendetta" yet? Do you like it? I sooo wanna see that movie. Although Alan Moore removed his name from the movie, the premise itself is intriguing enough for me to go see the movie. This is a year for lots of good movies I think. Though I'm not as excited about X-men Last Stand as I was for the last two X-men. Anyways, gonna finish up this post and go work out, maybe even catch a little of the 'canes vs. Leafs game. Ciao!

DRAGONCRYPT 3/21/2006 9:03:36 PM

Tuesday, March 14th 2006

Wow, was the weather great in Toronto and Waterloo or what? I hope everybody has a great weekend doing something outdoors. For those of you not in the GTA region, the temperaure in Toronto went up to around 16 degrees Celsius on Sunday, thus providing many with an early BBQ season and reasons to wear skimpy outfits. As for my weekend, it was another great weekend of chilling. I spent Saturday shopping for food and doing Sudoku. Chinese grocery stores are so cheap it's unbelievable. I used to spend over two hundred dollars a month on food, sometimes topping out at four hundred depending on the food. Now with careful planning I can survive on almost half of that a month. Not only am I saving money, I'm also eating more healthy. Granted you need the time to cook the meals but I cook for the whole week which is similar to just buying the frozen dinners I guess. This week Jenn and I decided to go to one of those "cash-only" Chinese stores. It was a zoo! But great deals were to be had. If you never had pig ears, you are definitely missing out! Pig ears are so addictive. The dish is prepared so the ears don't actually look like ears but just strands of meat. Delicious and definitely enjoyable if the origin doesn't bother you.

To take advantage of the gorgeous weather, Jenn and I decided to take a walk in downtown Toronto. I haven't been down there since late last year so I wanted to check it out. We decided to check out the Distillery District and have coffee at Balzac's. Cool atmosphere and great coffee. We also walked around Chinatown and Queen Street. The streets were pretty dead at around 11 o'clock (nothing was open really) so it was an enjoyable walk. It's sad to see how dead some parts of Chinatown are. I used to love going to Chinatown Centre but now it's like a ghost town. Though there are a few hobby stores I would love to go to when they're open.

The Canadian Opera House is almost complete and so is the new Ryerson University Building. It's great that Toronto is trying to transform the downtown core and I hope that it eventually becomes a downtown that rivals that of any other international city. But first, lets get rid of the cars on Yonge Street. We saw the AGO being renovated and found out that select galleries will be free until June during renovations. Awesome. I don't understand of a lot of art but I still try to make an attempt in being "cultured". After all, comic books is an art form is it not?

I'm working a late shift this week so my updates will be slightly sporadic. It's getting chilly again and currently snowing right now. I had hoped that Spring had arrived a little early. Well, I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that this is the last week of cold weather. Oh yeah, one of my roommates has come back from visiting relatives in South Korea so the house is full again. It's gonna be weird to get used to three people in the house. Noisier I guess. Anyways, off to Costco to make an egg run (their eggs are CHEAP!). Cheers

DRAGONCRYPT 3/14/2006 10:46:05 AM

Sunday, March 5th 2006

I completely forgot that the Academy Awards were tonight. Bleh, just a waste of time and a big marketing gimmick anyways. I welcome everybody to March. The month that brings in Spring. Please Spring, come early this year!

Jenn came up to visit me this weekend. Obviously, this meant the weekend was a great one. I took a half day off from work on Friday so I could pick Jenn up from the bus station. So began the feast that awaited us. Friday night we had baked turbot fish and my leftovers from the week. Soo good! We ended up watching a few movies with Brian and then turned in for the long day ahead. Saturday I took Jenn to the Farmer's Market in St. Jacob's. Not too many people are there during this time of the year but I wanted to show Jenn around. Went shopping all over town afterwards and then ate some decent Vietnamnese food. A little while ago, Jenn had a craving for some panini. We decided that we were going to try an make our own version of breaded eggplant panini. Was it successful? YOU BETCHA UR ASS it was! The paninis were soooo good. I'm getting good at this cooking thing. We ended up watching a few more movies as well. I watched the tail end of the the Maple Leafs loss to Ottawa. At least it was a respectable loss...

Sunday was leftover paninis, biscotti and coffee and Coke marinated roast! Another successful cooking session. I even have enough leftovers for the next few days of work. I dropped Jenn off at the bus station and she should be home soon. Decided to update the site during this down time. It's so good to just do stuff with somebody, even better when it's Jenn. I've been cooped up in my house for the last while because of the financial constraints. I save whatever money I have for the special occasions. I admit, it does make everything more enjoyable. Gone are the days of weekly bubbles for me. A nice quiet night at home is what I look forward to nowadays.

I hope the Leafs do not fire Pat Quinn. He's their coach and when a sports team does bad, they usually fire the coach. The team was definitely built around the premise that if everyone stayed healthy, they would be decent at best. Not everyone has been healthy and the Leafs are fighting for a playoff spot. The Leafs have to write this year off. If they make the playoffs, great, but they need to start thinking about the future. Sundin and Belfour are definitely peaking and McCabe has free agency this year. Quinn has done pretty well with what he's got. Of course, I don't expect Quinn to be here forever, but there's a time and place for everything. There's no point to bring in a new coach right now. Win or lose, they're still my Maple Leafs. Go Leafs Go!

DRAGONCRYPT 3/05/2006 9:07:06 PM