“Boom, headshot!”
{Something the gang at EAC IT used to yell out whenever someone was terminated that we didn’t particularly care for. Something I was tempted to yell out when I was laid off last year. Given what’s been going on in the gaming industry of late, you’ll forgive me a little gallows humour.}
This is my 600th post on this incarnation of this blog. I had another one at Blogger for a while, and I think I have them somewhere, I’ll have to make sure they’re back in my archives. Maybe another 15 posts or so. Elissa is over for our quad-weekly visit and Pimms-fest. Booze-amahol is inherent in this post.
Today my brain kinda went into neutral at work. I got stuff done, honest. I got to order a bunch of something that I would normally have shot down, or suspected isn’t really necessary, which translates to “I’m worried they’ll become toys.” It’s that enough of a sort of purchase that the person at the vendor said “Oh, are these gifts for people at work, like a giveaway?”
I feel like putting stickers on them when they arrive that say “No having fun with this.” I’m such a grump sometimes. I’m a hardware junkie like the best of them, but sometimes I feel like people want things because it’ll be fun to have them. Not because they’re needed for business purposes, but because they’re cool.
Sorry folks, gotta vent. I’ll write about the bank thing, and reading email tomorrow, probably. Also the new podcast episode won’t play, and I can’t tell why, which is (as 3yo Tate would say “Fwustwayting.”
AGM Today. The short version: the thing that was attempted by a person who isn’t liked (but had a little groundswell anyway for one PART of what he was trying to do) was suddenly retracted *right* before the vote, thus rendering all the stress and craziness around it totally null and void.
The Long Version: Thanks for coming out. Thanks for suddenly making it enough about you (after telling us ALL ABOUT how it wasn’t personal at all) that you were willing to drop the whole matter when you didn’t think you could win any more. You talked yourself into a hole instead of just letting people decide for themselves whether or not they wanted to lend their vote to what you were trying to do, and then took away the chance for anyone to actually, y’know, VOTE on the MOTION by suddenly making yourself unable to be voted down. You didn’t want to lose, so you’d rather just not show up for the fight. Half of the people that might have voted for you later in the evening on the 2nd topic walked out the door shortly after you pulled the rug out from under them. I don’t blame them, and I feel sorry they didn’t feel heard. Again. Again.
Last year, at the AGM, I was one of the rabblerousers, and trouble-causers that you claim to be. I got nominated from the floor at the very last moment, was accepted by acclimation, and then picked up the fight Arwen had been fighting for the previous nine months. It was ugly, and I was being told I should quit, and that maybe I wasn’t doing it for the good of the society, and was being scolded for contacting the “higher-ups” in the Govt bodies to do something as rude as asking “can he/they/we do that?” But when the old Executive Director and Treasurer quit within a week of each other (after getting ito a full-on flamewar with me over Xmas), I like to think I had something to do with it. I like to think I made things uncomfortable for people who weren’t honouring our rental agreement (individual, or with the gov’t body that holds it). Make the people who were attempting to invade my privacy and break agreements because living where I live is “A privilege, not a right.”
So, way, to go, asshat. You actually did the *exact* opposite of what you claimed to be trying to do, so you’re either useless, or evil, and isn’t THAT what you were claiming you were trying to put an end to in the first place?
The fact that you were surprised you didn’t then get voted onto the board, that fact that you thought you had a chance, thought you had a hope, shows me how utterly disconnected from the tenancy and membership on the block you actually are. You stole the passion, the bravery, and the energy from the people who tried to make changes last year (and to people like myself and a few others on the board, who are still trying to make changes happen). It’s a tough fight, and we are often met with eye-rolling, deep sighs, and suggestions of mental instability.
What you’ve done over the last six months made all the dismissive actions seem totally justified.
You claim your eviction had to do with you “becoming political” last year.
I didn’t see you at the AGM last year. I don’t remember you talking to your neighbors about the attempted (and against rental agreement) increases in rent. You didn’t say ANYTHING until you got caught out on a basic tenet of rental housing, and they had you dead to rights, and then suddenly you wanted to hear what sorts of problems other tenants had.
A little late to the party, dude.
I must be doing something right, I’m getting more spam in my filters in the last week than I have in the last year.
Found out something cute today, as a sorta followup to something fun Arwen found out a few years back. When she was doing some research for her degree, she was reading something about “Sniffer” programs (used to watch/capture network communications), and came across a German article talking about “Shnuffleprograms,” and we had a good giggle about it.
I mentioned it to someone at work who speaks German, and they pronounced it for me. It’s even cuter than Arwen and I originally thought.
It’s pronounced “Shnewfil-program.”
During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I’m growing a Moustache. That’s right, I’m bringing the Mo back because I’m passionate about tackling men’s health issues and being proactive in the fight against prostate cancer.
To donate to my Mo you can either:
1. Click this link https://www.movember.com/ca/donate/donate-details.php?action=sponsorlink®o=2116366&country=ca and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account, or
2. Write a cheque payable to the ‘Prostate Cancer Research Foundation of Canada’, referencing my Registration Number 2116366 and mailing it to:
Prostate Cancer Research Foundation of Canada
Attn: Movember
145 Front Street East
Suite 306
Toronto Ontario M5A 1E3
Donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.
The money raised by Movember is donated directly to the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation of Canada who will use the funds to create awareness and fund research across the country into prevention, detection and treatment, with a goal to ending the threat of prostate cancer.
Did you know:
• Every year around 24,700 Canadian men are diagnosed with prostate cancer and about 4,300 die of the disease, making it the number one cancer threat to Canadian men.
• 1 in 7 men will develop prostate cancer in their lifetime.
• All men over the age of 40 are potentially at risk and should talk to their doctor about the disease and early detection. Prostate cancer is 95% curable if detected and treated early.
For those that have supported Movember in previous years you can be very proud of the impact it has had and can check out the details at:
[ Fundraising Outcomes ].
Movember culminates at the end of month Gala Partés. If you would like to be part of this great night you’ll need to purchase a [ Gala Parté Ticket ].
Thanks for your support,
John.
More information is available at http://www.movember.com/.
Movember is proudly grown by Canadian Club, Mercedes-Benz and Philips.
Movember is a proud partner of the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation of Canada.
Just a quickie hello to the world, ’cause the Mighty Mighty MoxieSnacks is over, and we’re getting our drank on. It’s a thing that happens every few weeks, and usually when it’s deeply crapulent weather outside (as opposed to what – the weather inside?)
Oh, so I don’t have the headache today, but I am crackling some sorta tinfoil in my chest that makes me cough when I lie down, and my nose decided to have a gushing freakout, so I raided the bathroom cabinet.
So I’m on:
So I’m not writing much today, but I’m sure as hell yammering a LOT. Srsly. Shut. Me. Up.
Karla got to me, and I signed up to Twitter. It seems that NONE of my friends are on Twitter (with the same email address that I have for them in my messenger).
So yeah. I’m doing that.
Oh, and our soundtrack tonight was brought to us by RadioParadise. Thanks to Clara a few years ago for pointing me towards them.
In which our hero stays glued to CNN for the evening, watching the election, and constantly feeling like “How are they going to steal it this time?” Spoiler alert for those of you who TiVoed it: It wasn’t stolen, and Yes, They Did.
I’m not feeling 100% today. Little sore throat, a tiny headache in the side of my neck (?) but other than that a good day. Hard to complain when the good guys win, for once, though, woohoo!
Oh, and just in case you’re American, and voted, and felt like it didn’t matter much? Mr. Saul Williams would like to have a word with you (hat tip to DreamPepper) about the whole idea of history.
Click here for more videos from Vote For Change
My fave piece from this video is this chunk:
Dear History,
You are behind us and we are no longer looking back. We are standing on the threshold of new times, new days, new worlds, and charging forward without battle cry or trumpet, while cynicism, apathy, and cowardice take their place beside you, behind us.
Also, the HipHop-For-Thinkie-Types guy over at Ill Doctrine had some smooth stuff to say about voting, ’cause you’d feel like a real heel if you have to tell your children you sat at home the night Obama almost won.
What else? Today I figured out how to make Ubuntu perform badly on a network. Seems like the sort of thing one should avoid, but in this case it’s something we’re TRYING to create. Some “real world” networking stuff is needed to see what our all-multiplayer-online games are like when you don’t have $50,000 worth of networking gear between you and the server. I’ve been using Ubuntu as my surfing box for a year or so now, but it’s nice to actually have to learn something at work with it. Makes me push that much harder/faster to figure out how to make it do something I want to do. Good times. No, really, I enjoy that.
In which our hero finally sits his two little ones down in front of Star Wars. It might be the “fixed” version, but it looks pretty good. When they get older, we’ll get into the whole thing about how the “real” version is the “best” version. Han shot first, dammit (but in this version they shoot at the same time, and that Greedo is a lousy shot, lemme just say).
Laundry night (writing in bits and pieces while hauling stuff). Tate and I went to Sport Ball at the West End Rec Center tonight, which meant leaving a little early from work, and hauling butt up the hill on my bike, so I could then walk back down the other side of the hill with Tate. Cycling’s going really well, I think, since I’ve only NOT rode my bike for maybe four days since starting, and I had a Dr’s note for that. Really. Like, specific “No riding a bike for at least a week” kinda instructions.
So, SportBall, or “Dad & Me” class. Imagine a half-dozen or so kids between 3 & 4 running around with an equal number of dads, all playing sorta-kinda sports. Each week is a different sport. The first week was soccer, sorta-ish, and this week was basketball.
Tate *hearts* the running and kicking and throwing, but sometimes his natural inventiveness gets the better of him, and he wants to roll the hulahoop and then chase it WHILE trying to throw the ball through it (to me).
In the control room Luke and the gang hole up in, there are large reddish buckets near the door. What’s in those things? Toner for the printers? Buckets of new helmets? Wine? I bet it’s wine. No wonder the StormTroopers are such bad shots. They should have all just set their guns on stun, and blue hoopie-thingied the hallways every five minutes.
Cold Stares Gold stars for parenting, in which our hero wrangles a pound and a half of pot roast into an edible (and even non-life-threatening) meal, and my old job cans a few more peaches.
So, after the time change, and the kids of course not realizing the sheer joy of being able to curl up under the covers for that extra hour, we were up and at ’em. Some coffee and scones later, and we were booked for a CanCar (the Prius, for the discerning putting-around-towner).
Off to MEC, which wasn’t open yet, so we schlepped the four or so blocks up Broadway to Main, went to some non-Googleable place for caffeine and muffins, and then meandered our way down 10th again. Freakishly beautiful houses (many heritage ones) along 10th here. Like crazy-awesome places that are solid stone and giant beams with yards and old trees and just plain, like, HOMES, man. Who knew Vancouver still had ’em. Of course, in our bubble’s-a-poppin‘ Vancouver financial venue, these places are all probably pegging in at roughly the annual salary (plus unlisted bonus) of certain executives at my last job.
So, no, we’re not buying in the area quite yet. Ahee. Still, nice to see that they’re not all turned into quadruplexes and condo-wanna-bes.
