A waste of bits and bandwidth

Lately, when I have returned to my plush, well-lit apartment I’ve noticed a faint yet distinct smell of an electrical fire. Hence the title of my last post. Yes, I’m clever and subtle at the same time.

On Sunday evening I was puttering around when I walk past my beloved PowerBook. There’s a dialog on the screen saying that Firefox had crashed. “Hmmm, that’s odd…” I dismiss it and go about my business. Later, I’m chatting with Biff when iCal crashes, followed shortly by Activity Monitor. “Dude, I need to reboot… brb…”

Well that was it; she wouldn’t shut down so I powered it off. I restarted and got to the Apple logo when my hard drive started to make noises. Bad, metallic noises. After a brief yet intense attack of hysteria, I slapped myself and got down to troubleshooting.

I got a utility disk with my AppleCare (so glad I bought that…) so I put it in and booted off the CD. All the disk tests made my hard drive sound like a washing machine full of bowling balls. At this point I knew it was all over.

I called Apple in the morning and they told me I could take it to Macstation for repairs. I was all excited figuring I could probably pick it up on my way home from work. “We’ll call you in a week…”

So here I sit, on the edge of my bed hacking this out. I miss my mac…

Well, it’s been two weeks since I got back and lots has been going on. The jetlag seemed a bit worse this time but I assume that was me thinking that I knew how to handle it. Wrong.

Went to a party at the Shnewt’s last weekend and while small, the company was excellent. Odd how life just picks up as normal. I’ve been getting pics from some friends in Korea so it’s worth clicking through to have a look. MiHwa and Mia went to the studio to look at the proofs and they picked out 30. Still gonna be three months though…

Luckily, our consultant was snapping pictures the whole time and last night she gave us access to her FTP site to download the ones she took. They came out pretty well and I’ve posted a handful. Korean dad is going to pick up the pictures and video from the ceremony but I have no idea when I’ll get those…

Had a great start to the weekend. Our crazy IT guy left work on Friday because he is moving to Japan. He based this decision entirely on a three week vacation last summer which makes no sense at all. Hell, I love Seoul too; I sleep in everyday, go out and see the sites and then go get drunk every night. Nice life but it’s not reality.

In any event, a bunch of my partners in crime went out for drinks with the PFY in order to send him off on the right foot. As luck would have it, I was also to be having drinks with the gang from my old company. Needless to say I drank two beers far too fast and was off to Gastown.

Had a good time there too. I can’t believe it was two years ago that I was there and only stayed for four or five months. Made some good friends which is what matters.

So anyway, there you are. A meaningless post but aren’t they all? I’m really just padding my February stats.

So I’m retarded but you already knew that. Luckily my stupidity paid off in the end.

Wednesday, the wife and I were off to Japan. We made it to the bus despite a cab driver that deserved a beating. My beloved was ready to open a can of whoop-ass on him but we got out of the cab and the airport bus pulled up seconds later.

We arrive at Incheon go to check in and the staff looks at my ticket and goes “This is for Thursday” At this point I hear a bell in my head; “ding…” WTF… I looked at the ticket and yes, it is for Thursday but it’s not computing. “ding…” I guess I only looked at the flight number and missed that the date was wrong when I changed the flight. “DING! DING! DING!”

Me: “well, this is a mistake but we can change it right?”
JAL: “um, no”
Me: “look, I need to be on this flight, I’ll buy a new ticket to Japan if I have to”
JAL: “you’ll need to purchase a new ticket to Vancouver as well; the tickets were purchased together”
Me: *more dinging, the voice in my head goes nuts and a vein in my forehead starts to throb* “what? why? I paid for a layover in Japan. Can I get a refund on the old tickets?”

Cursing my stupidity, we go to the ticket counter only to be told that my original ticket is not refundable. I’m now standing there tapping my Visa and JAL cards on the counter and literally biting my tounge so as not to be arrested. Luckily MiHwa was able to talk to the clerk in Korean and all of a sudden everything is fine. Not knowing what MiHwa had said, we run back to check in again and indeed, everything seems ok. I guess they’ll take my Thursday ticket. Don’t know why and I really don’t care. “Let’s get the hell outta here”

Totally relieved, we start to turn away when the clerk comes running over and I figure the jig is up. She asks for our boarding passes back. I feel the vein in my forehead throb. What’s this? Upgrade? To Executive class?

Turns out my lovely wife explained that she had just married a moron and that we were leaving for our honeymoon in Japan. Heartstrings tugged and we were living large.

It was fabulous… These podlike seats that totally reclined like the finest LazyBoy. And the food… Oh my God, the food was so much better. Everything was better except that were weren’t sitting next to each other.

So in the end it all turned out better than we thought but the stress really wasn’t worth it. Oddly, the wife still loves me

Well, we’re done. We got back home from GwangJu last night and everything was perfect. The weather was really nice; sunny and very warm. As luck would have it, the brutal cold snap broke just before we left Seoul on Saturday morning.

The ceremony was great even though I had a lot to try and remember as far as the bowing and all. I had a helper, Mr. Cho, who stayed with me the whole time and translated for me. I only screwed up once which isn’t too bad. There was a goose, though it was wooden, but no horse. We wore huge robes which kinda defeated the whole HanBok thing for the ceremony.

We had around 70 people show up for the wedding and they joined us for lunch after. It’s all a bit of a blur now but I can’t wait to see the pictures and video. I was taken to my room abruptly and didn’t have time to give anyone my camera but there were lots of pics taken.

We had a great lunch with everyone and then retired to Mom and Dads for dinner. At dinner they took great pleasure in watching my reaction to eating live octopus. It actually doesn’t have much taste at all but I can do without the visual, thank you. I politely declined trying the ink-filled head. Of course by then, I was half corked so I probably could tried it without much effect. Little known fact; if you cut up an octopus, the suckers still grab onto the plate…

As with the last trip, we raced of to the airport and got on the plane with minutes to spare. By the time we landed in Seoul, we were bagged. We grabbed the train and a pizza on the way home. It had to have been the best pizza either of us have had in a long time.

Had a lot of people to talk to talk to on the phone today. We managed to grab some lunch, play some pool and then grab some groceries for tomorrow morning. Wednesday, we’re off to Tokyo!

Hope that work is going well for all of you. (Sorry Biff…) We’re meeting Mia for dinner in 20 minutes and I intend to suck back much SuJu. Happy Monday