Highlights

Cytoplasmic Writings - September 2006 Archives

A very busy September for me as I get a year older. A bloody September for Canadian soldiers as Canada takes more casualties in Afghanistan. The Pope says something (duh) stupid about Islam. Hockey is coming!!!!

Tuesday, September 26th 2006

Back on the phones for the first time since training started. Answered some calls and it was like starting all over again. Didn't know anything and definitely had to put the customers on hold while I looked things up. I figure it will take around the same time to get used to everything. Probably another 3-4 months of answering calls and troubleshooting before the knowledge will be there.

There was a report I saw today on The National about how the nutritional information supplied for packaged food is confusing consumers. My roommate Brian and I couldn't stop laughing as the newspiece showed consumers buying margarine, cookies, and other junk food. If people really want to be healthy, they should stay away from all that junk food. LOL. Like buying a container of whipped cream is going be healthy in any way, shape or form. LOL. The Media is funny.

So for the next month I've got the really crappy shifts. I start at around 10-11 and end around 6-7. It's crappy because you can't really do anything in the morning and you can't really do anything at night. Just a whole day of working and nothing else. Normally a few weeks is okay, but I've got a nice month of these shifts. Sigh. I figure I'm gonna try working my butt off and then seeing in 6 months if I can apply for the Handheld Escalation Team. I definitely don't want to be stuck looking at logs all day long...

DRAGONCRYPT 9/26/2006 8:49:38 PM

Sunday, September 24th 2006

Yup, today is my birthday. I don't celebrate it much anymore except with Jenn. I had a co-worker's wedding to attend on Saturday so I had to stay in Waterloo for the weekend. We'll just celebrate another weekend. No biggie. Some people really like to announce their birthdays, while others, like me, just want to lay low. At work, one of my co-workers had their birthday on Friday. There's a company tradition to buy treats for everyone when it is your birthday. She brought in 3 grocery bags worth of candy and other teeth-rotting substances. Crazy. So much food. I didn't bring anything because I don't believe people who don't even know me should be getting something free from me. The regular leechers all rushed to her desk for the food once she emailed the department. It's amazing how people really jump at the chance for free food. Kinda shows their personalities eh?

So my co-worker Kelly had his wedding yesterday. I was invited to share their joyous occasion. Kelly sat beside me and helped me out when I first started at RIM. He's one of the few people I would call a friend from work. It was funny, his wife is also Jenn, so we had to always say "My Jenn" when we talked about our significant others. Funny stuff. Kelly was promoted to Server about 4 months ago. Work has definitely been less fun without him as a desk mate. Congratulations Kelly and all the best dude!

When I came home, my roommates had bought me some Star Wars LEGO. It was the V-Wing set. The set itself is pretty impressive. It comes with a special Clone Trooper Pilot so that was good too. There are some nice 2007 sets coming out. There's a Clone Trooper Battle Pack so you know people will be building their armies. I like my Stormtrooper Biker Scout Trooper army better. My roommates also treated me to a Blue Cheese Burger. They're pretty delicious and highly recommended to any fans of Blue Cheese. Next year I think I'll try to make some homemade Blue Cheese Bison burgers. It was all the rage this year on cooking shows.

Thanks to all Dave, Larry and Mark for giving me B-day shouts. Sorry I missed a few of yours. You know that I don't keep track of people's birthdays. I don't even remember my family's birthdays. Dates are just bad for me and birthdays have become a non-event. Sorry guys. Anyways, my birthday is almost over so here's to looking forward to another year! Things have definitely changed in the last year and I'm hoping more positive changes will be in store for me.

DRAGONCRYPT 9/24/2006 11:57:54 PM

Thursday, September 21st 2006

Every class has them. They are the annoying mofos that speak whenever they feel like and have a total disregard for others in the class. They are cocky and underwhelmingly intelligent; obnoxious and terribly ignorant. They make remarks such as "Microsoft sucks, Google kicks ass" or "I don't understand why everyone is an idiot". They hinder classroom synergy by making noise, ignoring the trainer and then interrupting the trainer when the have issues. Issues that would have been resolved if they had read the material or even listened before rushing headstrong into the material. Yup, every class has at least one of these inconsiderate asses. Well, in my training class, I have FOUR, out of eight students. F-U-C-K. To make things worse? They're all going to be working with me in my pod.

Am I afraid one of them might read this? No, not really, if they do...maybe they'll keep away from me. It constantly baffles me that so many people forget that we were all hired for a specific job. We provide support to our customers. The very customers that some of these mofos bitch and complain about are the same customers that technically keep us employed. Now I'm not saying the customer is always right, but dammit, if they call us for help, it's our JOB to help them. To blatantly call all our customers idiots or uneducated is unprofessional. I have no respect for individuals who behave in this manner. I will keep my interactions with said individuals to a minimum and hope that one day, our supervisor will deal with them. It's a good thing that a few of them don't talk to me after I told them to shut up a few times during training. It's times like these that I wish I had a hand in Darwinism.

In more work-related news, I found out the location of my new desk. It is the desk with the most passerby-traffic and there are 3 supervisors right behind me. LOL. I am sooo gonna move my new position in IRT Exchange Server. I can't wait for the torture to begin. The bright side to all this? Well, I finally understand some of the issues that were happening when I was troubleshooting the BlackBerry handhelds. It's really nice to see the big picture for the BlackBerry Solution. I'm not endorsing here, I've had a chance to compare technologies and I really think BlackBerry is a good solution. I'm not a big email guy so I would never personally get one, but so many people rely heavily on email now (which, to me, is a bad thing) that's it's RIM's time. Good for me right? Keeps me employed!

DRAGONCRYPT 9/21/2006 10:34:14 PM

Monday, September 18th 2006

37. That's the current total number of Canadian casualties in Afghanistan. 4 soldiers were killed by a suicide bomber while handing out candy to children. It's clear the Taliban really don't have an interest in the well-being of the Afghani people. Why isn't there more pressure on Pakistan to route out the Taliben in Kashmir? NATO troops can do all they want but they'll have to enter Pakistan to really destroy the Taliban. Things would definitely have been different if there were a hundred thousand troops in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban instead of invading Iraq. Well, it's good to see that many officials are admitting that the decisions made about Afghanistan have been a mistake. Let's hope the mistake will be corrected with as few casualties has possible.

Went back to Toronto for the weeked. Picked up my 5 weeks worth of comic books. Man, the bill was huge, more than I anticipated but much less than what it would've been a year ago. I still need to try and cut down some more titles to make room for some of the new stuff coming out. With the whole Wildstorm relaunch, there are a lot of exciting new titles I want to try out. DC and Marvel are really starting to piss me off with all their variant covers for EVERY issue now. I could understand variants for first issues, but for all their issues? Give me a fucking break you greedy hogs. I'm thinking of stopping any of these variants. It's definitely not worth it in the long run.

Jenn and I had Chinese Baby Grouper for dinner yesterday. Interesting fish. Very dense meat but it was still very yummy. I mowed the lawn for the first time in like 4 years. It was really really fun to mow the lawn again. I also got to try out the new lawnmower that my dad bought. The old one is almost as old as I am. Too funny. All that's left at home is the vacuum cleaner which is also reaching the 3 decade mark. My dad is funny when it comes to appliances. Always refusing to replace the old and spending more time and effort in repairing instead of buying a new one. Hope I don't do that when I have a house.

Second week of training and then back on the phones with new issues and a totally new environment. I'm really nervous but I think I should be fine...in a few months. I can't wait for my paycheque this week to see how the raise has affected my salary. I know it's not gonna be that high, but every little counts. Only 5 more car payments and I'm solid gold baby! Woohoo!

DRAGONCRYPT 9/18/2006 10:56:32 PM

Wednesday, September 13th 2006

There was a shooting today in Montreal's Dawson College. Not too much information has been given out but there seems to have been only one gunman. Nineteen people were injured with one confirmed dead, a young woman. The shooting brings back memories of the Ecole de Poltechnique shooting in 1989, also in Montreal. So despite the National firearms registry which was enacted partially due to the 1989 massacre, another shooting happens. When will people learn that prohibition and control will not stop the illegal sales of firearms? If you want a gun badly enough, you can probably find a seller.

Watching the information feeds on TV, I was disgusted at how reporters continually tried to use emotional queues to get a rise from me. I don't care that there were so many young adults at the school. Sure, they're young and shouldn't be exposed to this...but nobody should. One girl even went on describing the gunman as having 'retarded hair'. Wow, I wonder where the angst and anger comes from that feeds the crazy actions of these few deranged mass murderers? Yeah...maybe spend that more than 1 billion dollars that was spent on the Gun Registry to educating our kids about respect and decency. Not the bible-thumping Southern United States decency mind you, that's just a polar opposite.

Training is still going pretty well. I'm learning a ton of new material. I've been watching the phone queues lately and Server is always backed up. We are definitely going to be busy when we first start off. It's good and bad I guess. We'll learn things quickly with more calls but it's a lot of pressure right in the beginning. Let the pain begin! Speaking of pain, pain is having to train with people who don't respect the classroom. I really don't understand how people can ignore the instructors and think they know what they're doing and end up screwing things up, then going back to those same instructors for help. These people are completely oblivious to how disrepectful they are. I give a lot of credit to the trainers, I would've kicked out half my class by now. At least I have the material to distract me somewhat.

DRAGONCRYPT 9/13/2006 11:07:14 PM

Monday, September 11th 2006

So today was a day of remembrance for the victims of 9/11. There was no remembrance for the thousands or tens of thousands killed annually in Africa, or the countless thousands killed in the Iraqi and Afghani invasions. I love how the media has put such an emphasis on the tragedy of 9/11 yet where were they for the Katrina remembrance? I don't remember as much media attention. I'm sympathetic to the families of the victims of 9/11...but it's a total sham how such an event has become a media darling. Bleh.

This past weekend has been fun. I've managed to do a slew of things, but not as much as I wanted. I did end up getting a wireless router for my parents. I ended up paying less than 40 dollars which is great. Toysrus was nearby so I dropped by and picked up the LEGO Jabba's Sail Barge. Wow...nice kit. Other new kits also came out. I couldn't believe it....so many sets...so little time. Over the weekend, I added more to the cards section of the site. I've added one checklist complete with some sample card scans and also a box breakdown of the recent Star Wars Evolution Update trading cards. Box breakdowns are good for measuring how the real odds are and how collation is done in the sets. I'm working on a few other checklist but man, do they take a while to write up.

On Friday, I received news that I got the IRT Server position and had approximately 1 hour to respond. I had to give up on the IT Service Desk position and accept. So Friday was my last day as an IRT Desktop Support Rep. I started training for the Server position today. It's pretty cool, higher pay and more information to absorb. Too bad there are a few cocky dicks in my training group. I can't stand punks who take up class time boosting their ego because they can't get laid, even by the 2 dollar, eighty-eight year old, toothless prositute. Bleh.

Well, the extra cash will help pay debts and help me reach that goal of owning "the store". I just gotta keep that in focus and continue with the work ahead. Well, at least I'm working my brain and getting new material into my head. 14 months of the same thing was getting a little hairy. Glad to be learning a lot of new material. I just hope I don't mess it up and screw up someone's server...wouldn't that be nice.

DRAGONCRYPT 9/12/2006 12:02:01 AM

Thursday, September 7th 2006

I really don't understand what goes on in minds of people sometimes. At work everyone is receiving one of the newer BlackBerry models so we can use the newest features that we need to support. Some people have gotten their handhelds before others and the ones who haven't received them are complaining like little babies. That's all I've been hearing about the last two days. It's so annoying to hear the constant complaints about being jipped, etc. It's a fucking BlackBerry! Who cares if we get it now or a week from now?!! Jeez. As Jenn says, people tend to complain when there's nothing to complain about I guess. I sincerely hope I don't sound like these guys when I complain about process and procedure. I like working at Research In Motion, it's just the overall corporate environment that I'm not comfortable with. It's the same wherever I go.

Looks like there's going to be a YB reunion tonight at Ten Renn's. It's a shame I won't be able to make it but I hope that everyone is well. Not sure how many of you guys actually go to this site but it would have been nice to see what's been going on with everybody. Dammit, I still have to meet Mongoose's new girlfriend. Dammit, even Yung, Wongo and possibly Mark are going. Well, I'll get all the juicy info next time I see Andrew I guess.

Oooooo...yesterday night I decided to open my last two sealed boxes of Star Wars Evolution Update Edition trading cards. I had 8 boxes total and I did fairly well with the first 6 boxes. No crazy autographs (like the 1/1 cut signatures) or ultra-rare Evolution C cards (100 of each made). So I was prepared to get some mediocre autographs as my luck with Star Wars has never been the best. So to my surprise I opened a pack and I got the Anakin Skywalker autograph.....WOOHOOOOO!!!!! Current value is around 700 bucks so I'm definitely a happy camper. I almost started screaming when I found out but it was 2 am in the morning. I've had some very interesting and lucky pulls over the years. I've pulled the Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) autograph from the Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban set and also the Gary Oldman autograph from the Batman Begins set. I was looking to sell the Rupert Grint auto, but I'm definitely going to sell the Hayden Christensen auto. Too bad the Ebay/Paypal fees are so ridiculously high. Oh well. I need the cash to buy the Lord of the Rings Masterpieces cards coming out in October. Those look to be huge too. So if you're interested in buying the card, give me a shout and make me an offer :o).

DRAGONCRYPT 9/7/2006 2:58:59 PM

Tuesday, September 5th 2006

Man, it was a tough weekend for families. Less than 24 hours after 4 Canadian soldiers were killed in combat in Afghanistan, 1 Canadian soldier was killed and dozens wounded by a friendly fire incident. 2 US A-10 Warthog fighters strafed a Canadian position. This is the second friendly fire incident the Americans have been involved with. Maybe it's about time we find out why the Americans keep killing their allies...The soldier killed yesterday was identified as Pte. Mark Graham.

In other sad news, the Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin, was killed by a stingray barb that went through his heart. Irwin was filming a documentary when the freak accident happened. Stingrays are not known to attack humans. Irwin was an animated environmentalist and was considered an Australian icon. He is survived by his wife, Terri and their two children.

Well, that's it, summer is almost over with the end of the Labour Day long weekend. I didn't know that there was a Labour Day parade in Toronto...I wonder what who is in the parade. The kids are back in school and everyday life goes back to normal right? Speaking of schools and kids, I saw an article that was commenting on how school children are being overwhelmed with homework. Kids are not understading the material and spend 2-3 hours a night on homework. There's a growing concern over the stress this is having on the kids. Hmmm...maybe kids are getting DUMBER or the parents are doing their part in helping with the education. Too many people think it's the school's responsibility to educate our kids...WRONG...it's the parents. If kids can't do their homework, maybe it's because they need help...don't focus on the 'stress' that it's causing...laying the blame elsewhere just creates more issues in the future. Man, media nowadays loves to hype up everything and although many see through them, the vast majority still listen to the media without forming their own opinion. Probably the same people who got stressed from doing 'homework'.

DRAGONCRYPT 9/5/2006 2:48:39 PM

Sunday, September 3rd 2006

4 Canadians are killed and 9 wounded in combat in Operation Medusa, a Nato-led offensive in Afghanistan against Taliban insurgents. An estimated 200 Taliban are killed as well. Only two of the killed soldiers' names have been released. They are Warrant Officer Frank Robert Mellish and Warrant Officer Richard Francis Nolan. My condolences to their families and also to the families of the other two soldiers who were killed in action.

Now I like NDP leader Jack Layton, but his call to withdraw Canadian troops is stupid. Well, that's my opinion. To withdraw now would undermine what Canada has already done there. Sure, it's not the balanced role that Layton wants, but can you have a balanced role in Afghanistan? Does Canada pick the easy fights and when the fighting gets difficult, withdraw due to 'unbalanced' roles? Total bullshit. All the parties should be supporting our troops in Canada.

Spent the weekend painting Jenn's house again. Almost done all the painting but I had to help my dad fix our roof. Man, I was witness to some really really ugly behaviour at home. I can't believe some people will go to such great lengths to hate another, especially when that other person hasn't even done anything. In a way, I'm thankful for witnessing such atrocious behaviour because it helps me with the lines that I will/will not cross. It's always intersting to see how other people think and what goes on in their minds. Sometimes the line of thought is just plain crazy, but well worth the observation.

Since I'm working late this week, I'll be staying back in Waterloo for two weeks. It's about that time that I decrest the frequency in which I head back to Toronto. Don't really want to but it's the most feasible thing to do during the fall and winter. Saves on gas and it doesn't wear me down as much. Damn! I missed the season opener for Rescue Me. I hope that Showcase will have it repeated sometime soon. The series is kick-ass and worth watching. Tuesdays at 10 PM, Showcase.

DRAGONCRYPT 9/3/2006 11:44:21 PM