Brosie has some interesting stats in her latest journal posting. I'm not to horribly shocked at those statistics. Further proof that the states is the most fucked up country in the world.

Yes, yes I am ;) Thats Laura, by the way. I gave her my google shirt on the weekend because I never wear it. I was thinking of printing up that picture and putting it on the google boxes at work :P

Still havn't gotten any word back from the Blue Mountain PR person. If we dont have permission to film, we're just going to go riding all day (with Alex). I might be heading out riding on Friday too. Waiting back for details then.

Temperature for the next few days are more normal.. -4C, 0C, +1C (thurs,fri,sat)

The insurance adjuster came to my work today. It was perfect timing I was planning on getting there early however by the time I got out of the house and went on my way I was only 10 minutes early. As I was walking into the building, I noticed someone trying to explain to security that he wanted to see someone. I thought to my self: "maybe its him!". I introduced my self and yup! it was!

He came upstairs and took some photos of the crime scene. Asked a few questions and he was on his way. Now all I need to do is wait. He also asked me to call up dell and tell them to give me a quote on a replacement.

I called them up and told the sales guy the situation. I could hear his jaw drop when I told him that the insurance company was replacing it for its full value. "Uhmm.. this is going to take some time, let me call you back in about 5 minutes". After about ten minutes or so, the Dell Sales Guy(tm) called me back. "Uhmm.. I'm having a hard time trying to build a machine with $5k worth of goodies in it *chuckle*". After about 10 minutes of thinking what we can do to add to it, this is what we came up with:


Inspiron 8200 P4 1.8Ghz


512MB of ram


40Gb (5200rpm [fast for laptop hard drives])


64MB Radeon 9000 AGP


CDRW/DVD (24x) Combo Drive


1600*1200 UXGA+ 15" LCD Screen

Yup! I another 8 lbs beast! Sales guy was so enthusiastic that he was able to seal a $5k deal in like 20 minutes.

That was the most excitement I had all day. I also found out that I have 3.67 vacation days left. Hmm.. what should I use 'em for?! :)

No tapes in the mail yet mark... hopefully by Saturday! On Saturday Mark and I are taping a snowboarding event at Blue Mountain. Maybe I can snag some of that footage to start playing with Final Cut. I *think* we are going to bring the XL1 and the Sony. Not sure. Should prove to be fun :D

It's still fucking ball shriveling cold out there. -20C (with the wind) right now. I spend most of my days inside, which is alright I guess, I just feel sorry for the guys who have to work outside all day. Poor Bastards.

Bryan's baby was born today! Albeit 2 months early :/ Brianna is her name (w00t w00t!) You can see a picture of her. Another friend of mine says he might get engaged this year. I'm starting to feel even more old now.

Go see Chicago.. see it tonight! (8.5 on the IMDB scale). Catherine Zeta-Jones played an excellent role, as did Queen Latifa, and Richard Gere. It was an interesting look at the 20's in Chicago, showing how corrupt and money grubbing everyone was "back in the day".

"And then he ran into my knife... He ran into my knife ten times"

Fucking Microsoft did it again! First IIS, now MS SQL.. what next? hm... Word? MSN Messenger? fuck, probably XP ;P

It's been an extremely productive day for me, however, at the expense of not being able to go snowboarding with Gord and Mark:

- Cleaned up room! I ended up throwing out two garbage bags full of old clothes that I dont wear anymore. I also ended up throwing out about 1.5 bags full of old useless things. I also found the receipts I needed for insurance company.


- Took care of GST return for InfiniteLoop


- Took care of some invoicing/billing for InfiniteLoop


- Fixed a small music problem at Chinook


- Got some paper work in order for filing my Taxes.


- Removed the water out of my aquarium (there is no way i'm cleaning that biatch). Gord, still want it? :)

Took me about 5 hours to complete

Both Mark and Gord were pissed when I told them I wasn't going today. I tried to explain to them why this had to get done today. However I beleive Gord left with the impression that I would rather go out with Laura et al than go snowboarding. His argument was why can't I do all this stuff tomorrow? Well, what I neglected to mention to him (I didn't think of it until after he hung up) was that Laura and the gang had originally planned on going out today (Saturday). I told her I couldn't make it and if she would be willing to move the plans to Sunday. She did. Telling her I couldn't come on Sunday because I had to take care of stuff would be far worse than not going snowboarding today (mainly because plans were changed to accommodate me!).

Mark, as usual, blew things out of proportion. Gord took it better I think. What I didn't understand is why were they so mad. Did they really want me to go that bad? Mark "doesn't care" so I dont know why he's making such a big deal about it. I wasn't providing any service to them (ie, a car ride, or lift tickets, or anything) which they desperately needed me for. So why are you mad? It's possible that I told them at the last minute that I wasn't going (we were planning on going at 2. Mark woke me up when he called me at 1 and I told him I wasn't going).

I do feel bad about the whole thing. I also apologized. We will see what happens when they get back. I did leave a message on Gords VM to give me a call when he gets back.

I guess I could have taken care of all this on Friday. I decided to go shopping instead :/ Got two pairs of pants, new shoes, some cds and a dvd (Mercury Rising).

* TCB = Taking Care of Business

It's been a pretty crazy week. Busy taking care of business. I'm looking forward to not having to work tomorrow and Saturday!

It's been fucking cold this whole week - and I mean REAL Cold? It hardly got above -15?C Brrr!

Short entry. Not much to say. Probably going to go out riding on Saturday, as usual.

All of the insurance stuff has been taken care of (incase you didn't know, laptop got stolen on Monday). Work is most likely going to pay the deductable too, but still need to get the final word from them on that. I'm not sure what my replacement is going to be, still need to call dell to find out.

My workstation at work is going to be a Mac - yippe! I am going to keep on using the G4 400Mhz that they have there. Apple Seed (my mac at home) is humming along nicely, albeit naked. I need to find it a case!

Oh man! This song totally reminds me of the good ole days, eh Mark?

Installing Xwing/Tie Fighter from floppy disks.


Hacking bios passwords when our parents "grounded" us from the computer


Cheese filled sausages!


486 DX2/66


NASCAR


2x cdrom


Trying to get Nascar working with a winmodem in dos (stupid me)


Sleepovers


INTERLOG!



Ahh.. 1995 :)

(if you're leet enough to get the title of this journal entry, you know what I mean :P)

Had a pretty good weekend! Michelle came over on Friday, I helped her out with some computer stuff (had to install XP and other programs). I wasn't expecting anything in return, but I ended up getting a nice hug from Michelle and a cheque from her dad (whome the computers belonged to).

Oh wow! I love this browser (Safari for OSX)! It's spell checking what I type into this html text input box. Rock on!

It's funny. I spent the whole day today on my new Mac, haven't touched my laptop at all!

Anyways.... After I was done with Michelle's computers, Mark and I headed out to Tom & Jerrys for some tasty wings. We then chilled at his house for a bit, brainstorming a bit on some projects we can drum up (that involve video and web). Damon called and we headed to Kelseys to meet up with his gang.

Saturday was GREAT. Michelle, Mark, and I went snowboarding. It was a little cold, but things quickly warmed up. Mark was supposed to meet up with some of his school buddies, and we did, a few hours late ;) It was all good though. I got hit TWICE by retarded skiers who don't know how to ski. Both times I was waiting at the bottom of the hill for the rest of the gang to make it down. The first time I got hit, I didn't see it coming, and the skier plowed right into me. I was bent over undoing my bindings when it happened. So I had a lower centre of gravity. The second time I saw the guy coming. Luckily I already had my board off. I was able to jump over him as he was tumbling down the hill in a white puff of snow.

We headed to the bar for some drinks. Michelle was able to get some networking in. I was able to get a small buzz :) We all had a good time. About 85% of the conversation we had was just us quoting various tv shows (mainly South Park, Family Guy, and The Simpsons). I dont know if it was because we were all media students (well most of us) or just all happen to like those shows.

Today was geek and laundry day! Finally have some clean clothes to wear (w00t w00t, no more need for me to wear those white jeans ;) ) and I was able to get a lot of the "super secret mp3" project underway. I'd say its about 40% complete now.

I've come to the realization that a lot of the Australians have a really big rivalry between states (provinces). I'm not quite sure why. Residents dont think highly of Tasmanians or Queenlanders ("Westies"). Victorians always bitch about the New South Whalers. A little different here in Canada. It's pretty much all of Canada just hates Quebecers ;)

Lizzy (the Florida one) wanted me to call into a radio show she and her friend were hosting. It's one of the local Florida (Miami/Tampa?) colleges. Meh! what the heck. Called in a requested "Tonight, Tonight" by The Smashing Pumpkins. Thanks Liz!

Hrm.. I need to get new headphones - these ones are hurting my ears.

I am going to have to get my self a copy of Apple Pro Tools, to start editing some audio. Give me a shout if you have a copy :)

I cannot attest enough how much I *love* Groove Salad. Sad thing is, I've logged coutless hours listening to it, that I'm hearing songs over again :(. I gotta get my daily "tasty plate of ambient beats and grooves".

Christmas morning, my mommy only got a keychain from me (its cool, she wanted it - it's from Roots!) and I told her that her present is in the mail as I ordered it online. Truth is, I never did - as I couldn't find anything for her intime for the big day. Until yesterday, I had totally forgotten about it. Yesterday my CPU for my Mac (the replacement came) and my mom jumped up and down excited that was her christmas present. I had to dissapoint yet again! Fuck! What am I going to get her?!

I got a nice window seat on the train today on purpose! This way I figured "hey, I can use my Toque as a pillow and get an hours rest while on the way home". It worked perfectly! I was nicely energized for my workout an hour later (I go right after I hop of the train). The only downside was that I was in the first car, so the horn (the engineer blows it a few times at each railway crossing) kept on waking me up. I think I will do the same plan tomorrow :)

I'm starting to like my new shift. Not because of the new time I work but because there are people at work now :) I'm much more busy and time flys by so much quicker. I also feel like i'm in the loop now, since I attend more meetings and get involved in more projects.

I had mentioned that we were moving into our "swing space" on the 8th floor sometime at the end of this month. Plans have changed. We are moving down to the 1st floor (Ground floor for you Aussie Folk). So no nice elevator ride to the second floor (1st floor fory ou Aussie Folk) every morning :) I dont really mind that since our elevators are so ghetto. The programmer who wrote the code to run these bad boys should be shot in the knees.

My to do list is steadaly(sp) growing. Have to take care of GST stuff for company, chase up on some people who have outstanding invoices, finish setting up an account, clean my room, dispose of my now defuct aquarium, set up mac computer, reinstall windows on laptop, prepaire for taxes (already got a few T4s), do laundry, get mp3 server thingy running, get new email server up and running, and clean my car. Phew!

Gord is at a Raptors game tonight, Lucky Bastard!

YAy! I finally got a seat on the train. I decided to leave work about 10 minutes early, so that I could do just that. Im on one of the new cars, that have tables and a plug for your laptop. Toobad I forgot my AC Adaptor at home.

I'm feeling better now. My troat was a little sore the past few days. YAY!

Im starting to notice that the the days are getting longer. Now when I leave work at 5, its still light outside. Thats good.

Sue got her new journal up and running (with help from me, of course ;) ). Check it out at journal.suey.net. She's using MovableType.

Gord got started working on the web interface for the mp3 server. Im hoping to get this baby up and running this weekend. Still a lot of work that needs to be done though. Im being hush-hush about this because it's not going to be open for everyone to use, mainly because of its highly illegal nature ;)

One of Lauras friends, whome I met on new years, is a pretty big slut. I told her that a few days ago, so she's pissed at me. One of her friends (who is a stripper) tried to get me to "meet her" at Tim Hortons last night at 12am. I told her to call me when she gets there.. heh - she never did. Even if she did, I would bitch at her for waking me up. IRC people can be retarded some times.

Work is going good. Derek said that there might be some coverage changes, due to the potential war in Iraq. It's funny how new events (well not really, since we are a news agency) affects how busy we will be or how we schedule people. It's understandable though, since this event will generate a shitload of traffic to our servers.

Laura! Get your arse to Toronto

Going to meet Alex (and hopefully others) at an old Click Media hangout on Friday for lunch. Will be nice to see them again. I might organise another "dinner" someplace. Last time we had it at Chinook. Not sure where to have it next.

I forgot my work out stuff at home. I normally go straight from the train station, since its only a 3 minute drive away. Except today. I might have dinner before working out anyways. Chill at home to let food digest, then to the gym. This way it wont be as busy either.

Heh, its amazing how many people fall asleep on the train. Giess all those hard hours at work :P Im sitting across from this hottie too. hahah she has no idea I'm writing about her in my journal. I will never see her again anyways, so it's all good.

The new beetle convertable is coming out in the Spring. I like it! The first thing I thought when I saw the design was: "What happens when this puppy rolls over?". I decided to head over to the website and came accross this:

Pretty nifty eh? They did make one design change that I dont like. I *love* the side markers! You know, the turn blinker light on the side of the car, under the side view mirrors? They decided to put them in the side view mirrors now. Not cool.

They have some pretty interesting colours too! My favorite has to be "Aquarius Blue"

Too bad they start at $29,000CAD

I had a GREAT time riding last night at blue. Mark, Gord, Alex, and I all headed up there and got a nice 6 hours of snowboarding in. The conditions were a little rough the first few runs, however, as soon as the groomers came out - things were a little better. I wasn't doing to well off the jumps though. All attempted 180s failed. Im sore today, shoulder and knee hurting. It's all good though :) Mark attempted a 360 twice. He got almost all the way around :) Im sure the next time we're out, he'll master it. I have already gone out over a dozen times this year.

My room still needs cleaning. Maybe I will do that tomorrow?

Someone found it.. YAY! I just have to pick it up tomorrow 12 km away from work. If you found something (say a cellular phone) and called the owner. Would you expect a reward?

Second in command reassured me today that I wont be losing my job in April. I have mixed feelings about this. Maybe I was secretly hoping they wouldn't hire me so I could go traveling. This doesn't mean I still dont want to work. I love my job, I honestly do look forward to going into work each day.

The train thing is working pretty well. I found out the fine for not carrying a ticket/stamping your 10-ride card: $90. Yes, im not stamping my 10-ride each time I go on the train. David said they only check tickets once a month. Im willing to take that risk :) So far it has saved me money. w00t!

hmm.. bank account -$41.64.. Lowest ever. Thats fine, I get paid in less than 5 hours :P

I got my own blackberry now! well, InfiniteLoop does. After using works for a bit (thats what was found), I figured it was worth the $25 a month. The company of course is paying for it.

Got my tax "package" today. I can start filing Feb 10th. w00t. Must save money to put into RRSP by then. However, I can wait until the RRSP Deadline though. Be one of those retards who wait to the very end. *sigh* Will think about this more in a few weeks.

Sleep time.

OH yeah, view this: http://freeride.gordmedia.com/videos/bruets.wmv

I'm tired.

I did end up getting a google blanket!! YAY! It's so r00l. They sent another one, this time addressed to me, instead of my boss (who got fired a while ago). It's not the biggest blanket, but it'll keep me warm on those cold winter nights coding away. Gord suggested that I keep it in my car, incase my car breaks down.... naaaaah!

I also got my blackberry from ebay! w00t! Going to activate it tomorrow, under the company of course. I was a little worried, because the unit was so cheap, that it would be defective. Naww!! It works fine! I just hope when I call to activate it, I dont find out its stolen ;)

Work is going alright. Im not looking forward to "The Move". Starting next week (I think) we are moving to the 8th floor until May. During this time they are tearing down the 2nd floor (well, not the whole thing, just our area) to renovate/spruce things up a bit. Then its back down to the 2nd. The good thing is we might be getting our own lab (thanks Derek!). The bad thing is, I might not be employed to see/use it! :/

Plan is to go snowboarding Saturday night with Gord, Mark, and Alex. Going to be good!

My room is still a mess but at least i'm doing some laundry! I timed the wash cycle and set my alarm. That way as soon as its done, or a few seconds before, I can get down there and put another load in. Thus beating my brother or parents from sneaking in a load!

My brain hurts from work :/ Been really busy the past few days, mailing coding away. I did my first shell script today! I'm surprised it actually works. It is about one quarter the size of a perl script that does the same thing. I just dont see how this is more efficient than a perl script. I should time the two and see which one takes longer.

I have been debating about whether or not to set up a mp3 server. Only a select few people (most likely you, if you are reading this) will have access to download/upload mp3s. I was going to get a 3mbit/640kbit dsl for it for $70/mo. Just not sure if its worth the cost or not. I *might* be able to host it at work for free. However thats pushing it. I will have to talk to my boss about it when he gets back from Vacation.

Sorry for the lack of updates, been busy lately!

I have been snowboarding the past three days (friday, saturday, and sunday). So sore today. I was planning on going to the gym today. At 9am, when my alarm went off, I decided it was a good day to sleep in.

Mark edited a really good video of our riding on Saturday. I will have to compress it and toss it online for you guys to see.

I really need to do laundry and clean up. I always need to do that.. I can never seem to keep things clean!

I also need to fix my binding, as it broke while attempting to ride a rail.

Hrm... not quite sure what else to say.

I had a pretty good new years eve. After work, I scooted down to Niagara Falls to meet up with some peeps (more about that later). It took me exactly an hour and fifteen minutes! Rock On. Leaving at 5:45pm and arriving at 7:00pm taking the Gardner Expressway to the QEW. Laura said Jon has gotten from her house to his house (on the danforth) in like 57 minutes. Coming back I took the QEW to the 407 to Bathurst - An hour and a half. w00t! (Next time someone tells you it takes 2-3 hours to Niagara Falls, you can tell them to go fuck themselves ;) ).

I chilled with Laura and Khristeen (however the hell she spells it) and Andrew at Lauras' place. Had 2 hours to kill, because our reservations at East Sides wasn't until 9pm. Played a little Animal Crossing and just chillaxed.

Mary joined us at East Sides after we arrived. We had a tasty dinner, then headed to the Falls. By this time it was about 11:00. We walked the strip and had some fun in the Fudge Factory (jokes of Fudge packing was abundant). Met up with some of Marys friends and waited for the big moment! We spent it with some retard American saying he was Dutch, and these three (according to the girls, super hot!) Gay Guys. It was a first time a few of them had seen gay people kiss IN REAL LIFE! whoa!

We started to head back to Lauras house (gonna get HIV STD ASAP?) when we saw this chick pounding on her boyfriend. The poor bastard was trying to drive as she was wailing on him. It was a pretty funny sight.

We headed back to Lauras place (after some driving around). Laura was pooped, Khrissteen and I were chilling on Lauras bed watching south park. Andrew was bumming around on the computer. Mary was just chilling, waiting for her boyfriend to get off work. By 3am or so Khriss and I decided to jet, we got some pizza, then I dropped her off at her place.

LAURAS BED IS SO COMFEY. I ended up sleeping on it, paronoid that Laura was going to come in and steal it from me. She was sleeping on the couch and every little noise I heard last night, I woke up ready to move to the floor. Didn't end up waking up until around 12:30. Laura joined me in her room for some breakfast (mMMmmm popcorn and kit-kat!). We watched Iron Chef for a bit, then decided to get dressed and hit the golden griddle.

*Yawn* I'm still tired. Going to go to bed early tonight, thats for sure. New shift starts tomorrow (9-5). I forgot about that when we were making snowboarding plans. So I wont be able to make it tomorrow :( Fuck! Alex and Gord and Mark are going to go. Hopefully they will want to come with me on Friday night :D

I hope you guys all had a good new years. Congrats if you got my sms (that means you in my phone book!) I was surprised to hear back from Toni, when my SMS to her got through. Since I was at the falls when I sent it, I was roaming on the Voicestream network (yank GSM network). Maybe they have an agreement with Tonis carrier and fido doesn't? Aww well. Hopefully this year will be better for some people :)