a milestone age, back when ages used to be made of stone

so for the 2nd time in three days, there is a bag of cookies on my desk that i didn't buy.  this is always a pleasant site to see.

you see, i very often will buy cookies and leave the box/bag/package open on my desk for all to share.  people are helpless against the powers of the cookie.  they help me to get what i want whenever i need whatever that might be.

t'other day i bought a bag of cookies - Oreo Double Stuf cookies were on sale for $1.88 so i thought "why not eh?"

this bag of cookies lasted a mere 9 business hours.

so i guess through guilt, anonymous people have decided to contribute by placing their own cookie offers in my name.  the pope would be very pleased.

and today is Tracey's birthday, so go over to her blog and say hi and happy birthday.  it is a milestone birthday for her - she will be celebrating the recurrence of her 29th birthday, which would make her the same age as me now, though i don't seem to remember her being my age before this year.

the existential database debate

it wasn't until i started my new job that i realized how irritating it can be to ask questions of database and software developers. it seems to me that the vast majority of these types of people (particularly the DBAs) hold tightly onto the product for which they are responsible and do their best to guard the secrets held within. i myself was probably this type of person back when i had some degree of authority over my company, but this cannot be verified because the circumstances no longer exist that could prove the argument right or wrong.

here's an example of today's conversation:

me: is the production-backup database busted?
DBA: restoring
me: when is the restore generally scheduled for?
DBA: depends on our connection speed

to someone who didn't know any better, it would seem that our database server magically monitors the network bandwidth and decides when the best/worst times to perform maintenance would be.

BUT i know there is a schedule and unfortunately do not have access to find out what this schedule might be without someone else's aide. further questioning revealed first the estimated time of completion for today, the start time of the job, the fact that there are many steps involved before it is completed and FINALLY that it will be completed between noon and noon thirty.

it often amazes me how difficult it can be to get an answer to an easy question when it comes to the IT industry. I always do my best to form my questions so that they leave little to no room for interpretation but sometimes these roundabout answers cannot be prevented, like if you asked someone "what is a rainbow?" and they respond with anything from this list. we all know the answer is really just "those things that crawl up your leg and bite the inside of your ass ."

easier to get than mouse milk

i've been overly productive the last few days at the office. it seems to me that getting here insanely early in the morning when there are no other people in the office results in my doing more work than could possibly be requested of me. the downside to it all is that my caffeiene intake has had to drastically increase as a result in order to keep me in a cheerful-yet-sleep-depirved state of mind.

the major downside to coming in to the office at such an early point in the day is that somewhere around 1 pm i start getting insanely bored with working. i practically watch the seconds on the clock tick past waiting extremely impatiently to go home.

a couple of days ago i put a jar labeled "Moose Milk" on my desk.

in england everyone only has one spoon

i'd have to say that this is probably one of the best Kids in the Hall sketches ever done...



i think i'm kind of looking forward to watching Jackass Number Two. though i never managed to watch the show when it was on the air regularly (due to the fact that either i would never remember or i didn't have MTV), i watched and very much enjoyed the first film and figured that this was the type of film that didn't really need to worry too hard about plot or storyline or anything of that nature.

some of my coworkers were debating earlier as to the idea of actually watching people intentionally do stupid/painful/disgusting things to themselves. one of the coworkers thought it was the most ridiculous thing he could think of and a futile waste of time. personally, i think that the majority of academy award winning movies are an insane waste of time.

you know, i just realized that in 78 years of academy awards - with 78 films deemed "outstanding" to choose from, that i've only seen 12 of them?

and did you know that i've seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit? more than 50 times? (i even read the book, which was almost entirely different from the movie with the exception of the key characters' names, and even then only most of them, but still killer awesome)

6, 86, 53, 120, 35

i've determined that i have one complaint about my 2007 Toyota Yaris sedan .  the "random" feature on the cd/mp3 player is HORRIBLE.  i have three CD-RWs that i throw a bunch of music on and will often put the cd in, hit random and hope for the best.  what i've noticed in recent weeks is that on a CD with 140 songs i've been hearing the same songs over and over again when i'm driving so i thought to myself "i'm going to test out the random feature and see what happens."

the test: 
put in a cd, hit random several times to see which songs come up.  put in a second cd, see which songs come up.  re-try the first cd to see the results.  disc one has 135 songs, disc two has 143 songs.

the results: 
i noticed that hitting the random function several times on disc one produced an unfortunately predictable result:  tracks 6, 86, 53, 120, 35, 6, 86, 53, 120, 35... quite the pattern (i will admit that these may not be the exact track numbers as i'm going from memory, but i do remember that i heard the same 5 songs repeated).  disc two yielded a very similar result, but the really startling discovery was upon re-trying disc one i got the EXACT same results as the first attempt two more times in a row.

the conclusion:
there is a calculation that the random button uses to pick songs which is not necessarily random, but based on some sort of mathematical formula calculated against the number of tracks on the CD.

since this was a less-than-scientific method of testing i have determined that i'm going to actually take down the exact track numbers, compare them to the number of tracks on the cd and carry out this test on all three cds.  i will then use this formula to predict the "random" result of a soon-to-be-created disc four.  the conclusion of this experiment will be documented and forwarded to the Toyota corporation in the hopes that it will be either fixed or enhanced so that future generations of the Yaris MP3 CD player will be less predictable and therefore more enjoyable.

and no, it does not mean i'm a dork for conducting experiments on my car's cd player.

you've got my pen!

there's something entirely doubleplusungood about waking up at 5 o'clock in the morning.  the human body wasn't meant to be awake during hours of the day.  the woman who served up my coffee this morning reminded me that i was in fact lucky to not have to have been at work at 5 am instead of just awake.  i agree with that philosophy to a certain extent, but it doesn't make me enjoy being awake before the sun rises.  even the dog didn't want to get out of bed.  he had himself a little tantrum when i tried to wake him up and attempted to dig himself further under the blankets to hide.

speaking of which, where the hell is my pen?  it seems to me that at least once or twice a week someone ganks the pen off my desk, leaving me to hunt through the supply cabinet (usually in vain) for a replacement, only to find two days later that i will now have three pens on my desk.  i always find the pregnant ones i guess, which is good i s'pose because the survival rate of a baby pen on my desk is only a couple of days.

Ted Murphy is making a run for the papacy

i've been digging around the PayPerPost website (the place that pays people to discreetly hide their ads on blogs) and found out a little inside information on their CEO Ted Murphy. it seems to me that there's got to be more reasoning behind this advertising strategy than just finding ways for people to not-so-subtly stuff adverts for hair growth formula and low-cost pharmaceuticals.

from what i understand the funds that aren't being diverted to the completely unaware bloggers that have signed up are being sent into an account that will be solely dedicated to overthrowing the current pope by sending him into a blind fury by giving him bad coffee. such a coffee ignited fury has been seen only by few who've lived to tell the tale, and it's not a pretty site.

but if you do support the idea of overthrowing the papacy, you can sign up too (creatively hiding ads on blogs) and use my email address to show who referred you.

strong enough for a man, made for a woman

i just saw a commercial for Tide with Febreeze. it seems their new marketing campaign is directed solely at women (what aboot us guys that do laundry too eh?), but i think it's the point of the commercial that strikes me as most odd. essentially they're saying, in so many words, to stop smelling like a mother and start smelling like a woman. all of this being stated while a woman is holding what i would imagine is supposed to be her baby (it's probably been borrowed from someone else though).

is this to imply that mothers stink? do mom's of the world have a certain stink to them that mothers smell like baby shit and vommit or something?

or maybe their marketing campagin is telling us that perhaps this laundry detergent is only for women. personally, i don't really want to smell like a woman. i'm rather content with the fact that i smell like a man (if in fact i do smell - i probably do because i've been lazy so far this morning and haven't showered yet).

on a somewhat unrelated topic, i've started reading Douglas Adams' Life, The Universe, and Everything and have so far been as impressed with this book as the first two out of the five books in the trilogy of four. the odd thing about this series of books is trying to explain bits and pieces to someone who hasn't read any of the books without going into some ridiculous amount of detail or without being overly vague, though i think the next time when someone at work asks me what i'm doing, i'm going to tell them that i'm looking for an SEP.

and even more off topic, here's a list of the things i've had to take out of Poppy's mouth today:

• a rather massive roll of toilet paper (i buy the double-roll's yo)
• several receipts from several different stores at several different times during the day
• three of my socks
• a roll of scotch tape (i honestly have NO idea where he found this since i was convinced that we didn't have any to begin with)
• my backpack

Truck, on the other hand, is currently stoned on cat nip and has no intention of doing anything other than purring and drooling for the next couple of hours.

oh don piano

six by nine

last night i finished Douglas Adams' "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" and am quite happy to say that i was more than pleased with it.  i may even go so far as to say that this series of books has proved to be one of the most enjoyable science fiction series that i've ever read (this can be easily demonstrated that they are the first books that i have finished without interruption from another book since i read "Wiseguy" by Nicolas Pileggi which is also a completely outstanding and interesting book, but entirely unrelated to anything science fiction).

and having now read "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" i know know and fully understand the answer to life, the universe and everything, i know the question to that answer, and i now understand that the end of the universe will eventually happen right where i'm standing and hopefully i'll be able to have a good steak when it happens.

DOS-o-matic

for the last while i've been addicted to this computer game called "Hockey League Simulator". it's pretty old school - late 80s or early 90s i think. i remember my family had a 286 computer but my friend had a 386 with a colour monitor so whenever i would go to my friend's house we'd play this hockey league game.

it doesn't have any graphics, images, or whatever. just text. it had all of the players for all of the teams at the time, salaries, budgets, trading, farm teams, waivers. everything but the graphics. if you wanted the graphics, you could export your team to another game - Wayne Gretzky Hockey - then import the game stats from WGH into the league simulator.

i was always big on the league simulator though. didn't care much for the graphics and and jazz, but i always liked the idea of managing the team's finances, trading players around and what-not.

the game is sometimes realistic to what you'd expect, sometimes a little bit far-fetched. the Montreal Canadians generally seem to finish first with the Edmonton Oilers not too far behind but if you take control of a team and make some good trades, you can start to alter things.

the site that i scored this from seems to have disappeared, so hopefully the zip package i put together will work for you. i'll forewarn you though - since it is an MS-DOS program from many (many) years ago, it's not designed to work well with other programs running at the same time, so you'll want to make sure your screen saver doesn't start up while the game is running or else it'll be a few minutes getting it to go away.

click here for the download from my googlepages site.

pay per post

so i signed up for the PayPerPost idea. they have a slightly more interesting way of trying to advertise on blogs than ad$sen$e or crappy banner ads. essentially - from the perspective of a blogger you can pick and choose which opportunities you take which is certainly something that i dig. you advertise the products/services/websites that you agree to and conform to the rules set in the opportunity description. in some cases they ask you to write positive things, some are for negative ideas, some are just looking for a link-back. the cool thing is that you choose what you feel like writing aboot.

i figure i'll give it a try at some point. after you create a post for one of the opportunities you have to keep it in circulation for at least 30 days (like i ever delete anything here anyways), then you get paid. so i figure i'll try to hunt down PayPerPost subjects that i would have written about anyways and see if the whole "getting paid" idea manages to work itself into my pocket.

we are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams

stupid things i've done today:

• spilled coffee on my pant leg
• step on the cat
• spill milk on the floor of the kitchen at work
• knock the stack of unnecessary paperwork off of my desk
• spill coffee on the floor (this is a second isolated incident from the aforementioned pant leg incident)
• save an old copy of the document that i've been working on over top of the good copy of that document

smart things i've done today:

• eat a WonkaBar
  

and it's only 10:30am.  just imagine what the rest of the day has in store for me.

this weekend i will be heading out to the great ontario tri-city area of Cambridge/Kitchener/Waterloo (well, just waterloo to be specific) to help cinderella out with the Stitch N' Kitsch show.  if you were looking for something to do on saturday afternoon - drop by, it's only about an hour away from toronto.

i've kind of started to like the Kitchener/Waterloo area.  they're pretty nice small cities (about a hundred thousand people each) that are loaded with breweries and distilleries - Brick Brewery and Seagrams to name a couple.  i think my favourite part of the area though is driving past the Weston Bakery which seems to be continuously baking bread and smells wonderfully of fresh baked goods.

the land of misfit sequels

as much as i hate to write about the same topic two days in a row (unless of course that topic is coffee or breakfast cereal), it has recently been brought to my attention that not only is Stephen Speilberg planning a fourth Jurassic Park film, but also a fourth Indiana Jones film (thanks to FilmForce for that info).  i honestly think they should take the AVP route and combine the two to save time.  nobody's going to watch them anyways.  i mean seriously, isn't Harrison Ford getting a little old for the Indiana Jones role?  perhaps he just needed an answer to the question posed by the Beatles "will you still need me when i'm 64."  but being that i have seen all four of the Revenge of the Nerds movies and was a sucker enough to watch Jurassic Park III, I will probably (read definitely) watch Indy vs. the dinosaurs.

apparantly the recipient to the world's first penis transplant had his operation reversed.  the news article cited psychological problems inflicted by his unit on himself and his wife which in all actuality was them lying in bed and her pointing and laughing "nobody's going to believe that's yours." 

more sequels than you can shake your ass at

does it mean that i'm too slow if i haven't seen Saw II yet even though Saw III is due out in theatres next month (and its musical representation as well)?  or does it mean that the Saw bad guy is going to be the next Jason or Freddy.  i really quite enjoyed the first film in the Saw franchise, but am beginning to wonder how long they will drag it on.  will they keep it scary, or will it become a joke on itself within a few years.  perhaps we can expect a Jigsaw vs. Chucky film to be out before the end of the decade.  i'd pay to see that .

sunday's Terry Fox Run was lots of fun.  i went to a different location than i usually do which turned out not to have a timer-clock for the runners, so unfortunately i can't tell you just how fast (or slow) i was running.  i would say that i was in the top 50% though.  not too bad considering that i was kind of out-of-practice.  i didn't reach my $1000 goal of sponsors, but through cash and online donations managed to get over $350.  a big thanks to everyone who chipped in.

The answer is.... 42

i recently was hunting through thrift shops and the local libraries for a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - though i wanted one that hadn't been adapted from the movie (yes, there are copies that have been adapted from the movie floating around).

my search for a copy of just the first book in the series proved to be useless, so i managed to find a copy of The HitchHiker's Trilogy of Four even though there was a copy of the Trilogy of 5 available, but for significantly more money.

the first thing that disappointed me about every copy of the book i managed to find was that not a single one had the words "Don't Panic" written in large letters on the back of the book. you would think that at some point the publishers of this book in all of its versions would have thought to do that?

well, i suppose you would only think that if you had read the book.

but it had been many years since i had picked up a copy, and having recently seen the the movie i decided it was a good time to do so. i rather enjoyed the film, but was at a point where i couldn't remeber how faithful to the book it may have been.

although there were significant differences in character development and minor differences in story line, i felt the film did a good job of portraying the fun of the book while adding a bit of a hollywood love story into it as well (which does not happen in the book... well, the first of the four anyways. haven't finished The Restaurant at the End of the Universe yet). overall, i'd have to say go rent it and watch it - then, if you haven't already read the book go find a copy and read it (not the movie adapted version).

there IS one major important thing though to note before you watch the movie or read the book - it's that if you're the type of person who can't deal with alien names (which are often dreadfully long and difficult to pronounce and/or read), you will have to deal with those names if the guide should happen to end up in your viewing/reading lineup.

but it's all good. i'm going to make a point of reading all of the books in the series at some point before the year is over.

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Sponsor me for the Terry Fox Run and help me reach my goal of $1000 for cancer research!

these aren't the whores you're looking for

i'm sure it will please you to know, that the DVD versions of star wars that were released this week don't only include the new, wrong versions that George Lucas decided to disgrace by adding unnecessary CG animations, but they also include the original theatrical versions. i don't know about you, but i'm tired of seeing Han shoot first and the lame-ass new version of that song in Jabba's palace. the originals of both of those scenes were way more gooder. i was so extraordinarily disappointed when i bought the star wars films on VHS a few years ago only to find that they were the "improved" versions.

it may also please you to know that WildBoyz seasons 3 & 4 are also out on DVD. i don't know about you, but i just can't seem to get enough of watching Steve-O and Chris Pontius getting bites from dangerous animals, throwing elephant poop at each other and throwing up. perhaps a little on the immature side, but that's what works.

and tomorrow is the Terry Fox Run. everyone who hasn't already should click the link below to sponsor me for my 10 km run in support of cancer research.

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Sponsor me for the Terry Fox Run and help me reach my goal of $1000 for cancer research!

if i was paying you, would you return my call?

getting a hold of my landlord is a challenging task to say the least.  she's probably almost as difficult to get a hold of as the pope.

see, even though the pope and i go waaaaay back, he's a busy guy.  it's hard to run the catholic empire while still finding time for a good cup of coffee.

i did manage to speak with my landlord on friday and was promised a call back first thing monday morning.  monday came and went, i called and left voicemails for her on her cell and office lines.  here we are on tuesday and still no call back.  i find this bizarre because friday's conversation revolved around the words "important" and "money" and these terms would, under normal circumstances, prompt a timely resolution.

me and popey (you know, captain Benedict the 16th) spoke about it and he told me not to give it too much thought.

"i got yo' back bruva," he said in a calm voice, "i'm ON the mothafucka."

he's a good guy to have in your corner.

the good, the bad and the ugly

being that today is a day that the majority of this side of the planet is spending being very serious and respectful, i will spend it being idiotic and disrespectful, though i will not be so disrespectful as to insult the people to whom i should be respectful.  instead, i will just avoid talking about the subject.

the good...

a New York woman managed to win a SECOND million + dollar jackpot in the lottery.  even though this is good for that woman, it pisses me off since the best i ever do is free tickets and the occasional $10, which is usually used to buy more lottery tickets.  a friend of mine always used to say that the lottery is just a tax on people who are bad at math.  i tend to agree, but will continue to be bad at math until i die or win big.  whichever happens first.

the bad...

a pro cyclist got pissy and punched his team's bus.  i'm pretty sure that the bus has forgiven him and decided not to press charges, but the cyclist will miss the rest of the season with a broken finger.  the lesson learned here - don't punch hard things.

the ugly...

bridget jones's panties are up for auction in an effort to raise money for someone other than me.  do you think that i'd be able to make good money auctioning off my underpants?  is there much of a market for used canadian underpants? if so, i'd be more than happy to start selling them off.  should i start the bidding at $5 a pair?

a lesson for coffee and tea drinkers

you know those little cup-warmer things?  the ones you put on your desk and plug in so that your coffee/tea won't get cold?  i know, generally they seem like they're completely useless - which is why they can be found in abundance at your local thrift shop - but i don't like room temperature coffee and tea.  it must be hot or ice cold to satisfy my requirements.

if you have a mug that has a no-slip bottom - do not put it on the aforementioned coffee warmer.  the glue will melt and stick to the coffee warmer, making a very awkward and hot mug/warmer assembly for you to pick up.

that is all for now.

smells like burning

all day long there have been mechanical type dudes in the office doing repair work of some sort.  i think they're replacing a boiler or something, but i'm not sure because i don't really care that much.  the problem with this is that it smells like burning electrical stuff now - you know that smell, like when the power supply in your computer blows up and starts blowing smoke out of the back of the PC tower.

i read somewhere that the movie industry will be presenting us with a feature-film version of The A Team .  somehow, that just doesn't seem right to me.  the plot line will supposedly bring it into modern times, rather than be set in the 80s, but i just can't see anyone being able to cast the role of B.A. Baracus that was so brilliantly portrayed by the (should be) oscar winning Mr. T.

i had a look at the idea of PayPerPost blogging - a website that will pay you to write aboot junk that they ask you to write aboot.  i know that on the most part blogging is essentially just whoring out your opinion about what you think is good or bad, sweet or donkey nuts, but is it right to subject your loyal reader(s) to a blatant advertisement for something?  sure, it would be great to know that i was going to get paid for talking aboot the A Team or my favourite breakfast cereal ( Kashi Go Lean all the way yo), but is it morally right to be writing about it here knowing that the only reason i would be writing about that service/product would be that i'm getting paid for it?

but then again, the only reason i go to work is that i'm getting paid to do it...

everywhere but the bowl

i wonder sometimes...

i wonder if people have as much trouble going to the toilet at home as they do at work.  i never really found it all that challenging to get all of my ... you know ... pee ... IN the toilet.  getting the stuff that belongs IN the toilet from my body and into the bowl was never really a challenge for me.  do other people have this problem?  or is this something found only in the workplace and in public rest rooms.  is it kind of like a sport... you know, where you have the home field advantage in your own "salle de bain" and have a much higher percentage of getting your shot in the goal - but when you're away from the home field your shooting percentage may not be as high?

i wonder what possesses someone to eat half a donut, and leave the other half in the box.  when someone is so nice as to bring several boxes of donuts to work and someone cuts or tears one in half, leaving the other half there to go stale.  nobody else is going to eat that - it looks like you just bit into it and left it there.  just bring the whole donut back to your desk and throw out what you're not going to eat.  and half of one donut, and half of another donut does NOT constitute having eaten only one donut.  that means you WRECKED TWO.

i wonder what makes someone else (or perhaps that same donut-molesting person) cut into a cream/jelly filled mysterious donut to see what kind of filling it contains within its sweet donut goodness, only to leave it there, wounded and humiliated for the world to see.  it really is an awful site to look into a box of donuts to see two half donuts, and a wounded, bleeding jelly donut all waiting for homes and knowing they will never find one.