Highlights

Cytoplasmic Writings - Month Archives

Apologies for the lack of updates during the month of May. A lot of the posts for this month were back-posted after I got back from my trip to Orlando and got settled in. May was uber-busy with work-related things. Wish I really had more time to do things.

Saturday, May 31st 2008

Worked today. Didn't get too much done as I had to take a few calls that ended up being fairly long. I did manage to get my RAM back from work. Woohoo! I know have an extra 2 GB to put in my parents computer! Of course they're not going to notice it much but I will when I'm over there. Which reminds me, I really need to buy a new system. One of my hard drives S.M.A.R.T. informed me that the drive isn't doing so good. I have to figure out which drive it is and back up the information.

I've finally finished back-posting all of May's entries. Phew. It does suck that I didn't keep up with the posting. I don't know who reads this stuff besides Dave but I find it a little therapeutic to blog about shite. At least it gets me writing and doing something instead of sitting at home doing nothing. Then again, I'm the guy with a ton of hobbies and all of them sitting there unused and unplayed. Sigh. Well May's entries will most likely end up in the Archives and I'll begin fresh with June. Work is still crazy busy and I'll be heading back home a lot to start moving back shit to Toronto. Yup, only have three more months until I'm back in the GTA for good (for now). Excited and sad to leave Waterloo. Everything will be busier and more expensive in the GTA. Bleh.

DRAGONCRYPT 5/31/2008 11:36:51 PM

Wednesday, May 28th 2008

Since I have to work this Saturday, I get the Wednesday off. It's odd to have it off but I needed it. I finally finished my Corporate taxes. It was difficult to figure out how to fill them out when you didn't do any business. I also got my resume prepped for some internal applications. I already did my external resume so I'll start to apply for some external positions soon. Yup, job hunting again is not fun.

My lower back has been really sore lately. It started some time last week. I don't know what happened, it just started hurting a lot. I went running with Jenn and it really started to hurt a lot. I'm definitely getting older in my age. Although, this back pain usually comes after some heavy lifting which I didn't do. It's also been a lot longer than normal. I just hope it doesn't get any worse. I tried to rest today and I think it helped. We'll see later on I guess.

DRAGONCRYPT 5/31/2008 11:31:43 PM

Sunday, May 25th 2008

I really need to find a job where I don't work on weekdays and I don't need to work weeknights or weekends. So ideally a job that's about 4 hours a work a week with about 40 hours worth of pay. LOL. I love doing things on weekdays. Everyone is so busy working that simple things are great. Walking in the mall isn't crowded, eating at restaurants isn't a fight; watching matinee movies with no kids screaming in the back; the list can go on. Maybe it will be like that when I open my hobby store.

Speaking of hobbies, I totally forgot about my box breaks I got after coming back from Orlando. I picked up four boxes of Bench Warmers 2007 and 2 boxes of Andromeda Commonwealth. I also got my case of Indiana Jones and KOTCS. The Bench Warmer break was decent, I got a few extra autographs but that's almost typical of Bench Warmer boxes. I still can't believe how they can put such good quality cards plus the number of inserts in for the price they have. Of all the sets I've collected over the last few years, Bench Warmers has always been the most fun to open (even when you take out the fact it's bikini-clad women). The Andromeda cards were decent. I got two decent autos (one was a redemption though). The Indy cards were interesting. I beat the odds with the autographs. I got a total of 6 of them when it's usually 3 or 4 to a case. However, they were all pretty common autographs. I got a Shia LaBeouf but Topps recently posted the odds and there were really only three levels of rarity. Wow. I thought I would at least get a Jim Broadbent and/or John Hurt. Intead I got three Andrew Divoffs LOL. So I probably will lost some money after I sell the autos. None really interest me and I've got a case of Marvel Masterpieces 2 and Heroes 2 coming in. I've decided to wait on Clone Wars to see how well (cheap) it does. Topps hasn't been putting out good quality products lately. In fact, there's a pseudo-glut in the market right now I think. I've been very lucky with my pulls recently. Well, here's to some good luck selling those Indy autos. Excelsior!

DRAGONCRYPT 5/31/2008 11:18:23 PM

Thursday, May 22rd 2008

Since I worked on the weekend at WES, I managed to get an lieu day off tomorrow! I was quite happy with that as I definitely worked most of the WES trip. Though it's bad thing too because I have a ton of work today as well. I was asked to be part of a few more projects and I happily accepted. In hindsight, it probably wasn't the best move ever. I'm more swamped than ever and I think I've got one too many projects on top of my daily work load. Oops.

The best part about tomorrow is that Jenn is coming up tonight as well so we have an entire day off together. We'll probably go shopping a little and then watch a few movies. It's good to have some time to relax, especially after a pretty hectic April and most of May. We were thinking of heading out to the Farmer's Market and definitely using the bbq with the gorgeous weather coming up on the weekend. My own little long weekend! Awesome!

DRAGONCRYPT 5/31/2008 10:39:15 PM

Tuesday, May 20th 2008

Indiana Jones was okay. It wasn't bad but it wasn't amazing either. I really liked how they did the right thing and aged Indiana Jones and the rest of the cast. The enemies are the Nazis but the Soviets. Kate Blanchett played a convincing villainess. I didn't even realize it was her in all the promo shots until I read on a board somewhere that she was in the film.

I think a lot of people found the movie a little campy. I really thought it captured the look, feel and mood of the original trilogy. I loved some of the little tie-ins they put in the movie. I won't say what they are but if you're an Indy fan, you'll know.

DRAGONCRYPT 5/30/2008 12:13:46 AM

Monday, May 19th 2008

First day back to work and it's Victoria weekend. I so totally forgot it was a long weekend. It sucked too as it was a long weekend for Canadians but not for Americans. We were pretty swamped with work. I was trying to get myself caught up while still trying to help my pod and other reps out. Since it was a Stat day, we were short-staffed. Made me think about Orlando and how different that stress was. Ahhh....the king size bed :P

Apparantly RIM has managed to get a special screening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skrull before the release date later this Friday. Awesome! I managed to get a ticket for tomorrow and I'm stoked to see it. Firstly, it's a preview and secondly, it's free! with popcorn! Woot! Woot! I'm not sure about the movie itself as it is an old Harrison Ford and it's got George Lucas...bleh...though Steven Spielberg will hopefully have the movie on the right track.

DRAGONCRYPT 5/29/2008 10:39:43 PM

Saturday, May 17th 2008

Congrulations Ina and Brian!!!

Jenn and I got dressed up to go to the wedding of Ina and Brian. I've known Ina since grade 4 so it was pretty awesome to see her get married. She's always been talking about finding the right guy and they really looked like they were meant for each other. I didn't get to talk to her much during the wedding and reception afterwards but she definitely had the goofy Ina smile and laugh which meant that she was really happy. Awesome.

It was also a great time to catch up with some old friends. Paul and Carolyn were there, along with Joyce and her husband Nelson. My roommates Brian and Jeeyoung were also there. I finally got to meet Joyce's son! He's soooo cute and well behaved! I'm hoping my kids are like that. The dinner was pretty good as well. It was a traditional Chinese dinner where each course is brought out to you. I was quite full at the end of the night. Jenn and I were pretty tired so we decided to head out early. It was a good thing since I had a screwed up sleep schedule for the previous week.

DRAGONCRYPT 5/29/2008 10:33:41 PM

Friday, May 16th 2008

I am so dead tired right now. The conference was amazing!!! Unfortunately, I spent most of it working at the hotel. Besides having the labs and manning the booth for a few hours, I also helped with setting up some of the computers for training etc. So I barely had any time to go out and play and when I did, I was too tired to. The worst part was that I had to take the 7:00 am flight back to Toronto. That meant waking up pretty early today. In fact, I only had 30 minutes of sleep prior to the flight and crashed on the flight back. I then had the limo back to Waterloo where I crashed and woke up at around 3:30 to re-pack and head to Toronto. Crazy.

I would love to do WES again next year. It was such a great experience and it was fun to see so many different venues for BlackBerry. The Bold was also announced so a lot of employees were able to show theirs off after the announcement. I also got a few bags of swag. Unfortunately, I didn't get to go to the floor much and ended up not getting anything funky. There were some really kewl things that I wanted to see but wasn't able to. Well at least I was able to eat unlimited sashima and watch Cirque USA and John Mayer. That was awesome. It's too bad I don't drink, cuz there was an open bar for almost 5000 people. Crazy!

DRAGONCRYPT 5/29/2008 10:28:35 PM

Friday, May 9th 2008

Word of advice: Do not stutter when speaking to US Customs. I got my first secondary inspection and got fingerprinted and my name taken down. I wasn't questioned too badly, just asked why I was going to the States. Don't say "troubleshooting". I suck. At least I've already got a story to tell people. LOL. Honestly, I'm being flagged on land and now by air. Either I need to travel more or I need to stop being so nervous. LOL.

Got to Orlando in about a little less than four hours. There were other RIM people who were on the plane with me. I was lucky to get an empty seat beside me. I slept for most of the flight though. I still hate flying and I can't think of those flights to Asia. In fact, I'm dreading those flights.

Once we hit Orlando airport we all went to the hotel and checked-in. Wow. The Orlando World Marriot is also a resort complete with golf course and convention centre. This place was huge. Driving there, this huge behemoth of a building sticks out. It definitely reminded me of those evil corporate headquarters you see in manga. My room was in the main tower and it was awesome! I love sleeping alone in king-size beds! Though Jenn and I could probably sleep on a king size bed and still have enough room.

We all had lunch at the hotel and then decided to take a cab to the Florida Mall. It's the largest mall the area. Nothing really much to buy but there was a Toysrus nearby so I got everyone to hit that. Bought the AT-AP Walker and an Indiana Jones kit that was on sale. We were all tired so we headed back to the hotel. The one problem with the resort is that it is so far away from everything else that it's difficult to really do anything without paying for a hefty cab ride. Got back to the hotel, ate dinner and went back to the room to watch some tv and sleep. I was dead tired from the travel so it was easy to sleep.

DRAGONCRYPT 5/29/2008 10:06:30 PM

Thursday, May 8th 2008

Last day before heading out to Orlando! WOOHOO! I think I've packed everything. I'm taking a fairly large bag so I can pack some stuff back from the trip. I'm looking to get some LEGO for US prices and ordering some cards from Dave and Adam's Card World. I'm not certain that I'll make the deadline to get the cards shipped though. I may have overpacked as I have a billion pairs of socks, shirts and golf shirts. The thing is that the conference is business casual so I'll need to look decent when helping out but then I have to have my chill clothes. Speaking of which I think I need a new wardrobe. I try to keep up a little but I'm really outdated with my clothes. Some are at least 5-6 years old. Sigh. Aight, Disney World, here I come!

DRAGONCRYPT 5/29/2008 10:06:30 PM

Tuesday, May 6th 2008

It's crunch time before I head out to Orlando for WES 2008 hosted by BlackBerry! I'm so excited but I know that I'll be really busy with the setup. I just can't believe I'm going back to the States again. The best part is that this time around I'll be staying for 7 days and the hotel has said that I can ship stuff there! Woohoo! Time to order some stuff online and take advantage of shipping within the US!

I'm still helping out with training all week so it's been busy. I train in the morning and the afternoon as the classes are too large to fit into one room. It's been a whirlwind these last few weeks and it's hard to keep up with everything. I'm looking forward to some peace and quiet after all this travelling is done. I really don't know how some trainers do it. They travel 50-75 percent of the time. That's 2-3 weeks per month. That is so crazy. I'd be sleeping standing up!

DRAGONCRYPT 5/6/2008 11:45:50 AM

Thursday, May 1st 2008

Wow...end of the week already. I've had no time really to update anything or write anything here. I've been really sleepy these last couple of days. The group of new hires I'm training is large so we split them up and I have two training sessions. One in the morning and another in the afternoon. It's pretty tiring when I think about it. It's also been difficult to work on my cases after the training as my brain is sometimes so frazzled.

Next week I'll be packing for Orlando! Woohooo! It should be tiring and very very fun. I'll know more people and hopefully I can make some connections at this conference. I'm pretty sure it's the last conference I'm going to be able to go to. Oh well. It was good while it lasted right? I've still got tons of other projects that I can still be a part of I guess.

I'm going to have about a month's worth of comic books to pick up from my comic book store. Luckily the orders have been light these past few weeks so it won't cost too much. I've put up a whole slew of auctions on Ebay. Click on the auction link on the right of the page to view what's currently up for auction. Cards from Marvel Masterpieces, Heroes Season 1, Lord of the Rings Masterpieces 2, Women of Marvel and Indiana Jones Heritage are all up for grabs. Let's home I can break even with the boxes I bought. I really wanted to keep the McHaley sketch because it so FUCKING AWESOME but I can't as it's the best card I've pulled from that set. Oh well, at least I still have my Bettie Page Auto hee hee.

I've just finished packing the Wii so Jenn and I will play this weekend (I hope). We have DDR so it should be lots of fun. I still need to get the Wii modded but we just haven't had the time to go to the stores. It may have been a good thing since modchip prices have really come down price-wise. Maybe something later this month then. Ok, time to hit the sack, don't want to fall asleep driving back to Toronto.

DRAGONCRYPT 5/1/2008 10:41:46 PM