A waste of bits and bandwidth

The office I work in is located next to a federal office. The Department of Indian Affairs I believe.

Our buildings are separated by a small courtyard and unlike us, they have their lights on. This means if we look out the window we have a decent view of what the drones are up to. This assumes that it’s after 9AM or before 4:30PM because outside of that window, the place is deserted.

It didn’t take us long to notice one guy in particular. He does nothing but play Solitaire. Like, all day, every day. When he was gone for a week, we assumed that he was off at some sort of advanced Solitaire fantasy camp or something.

It’s so obvious because his back is towards us and he plays full screen so we can practically see the cards that he’s playing. We assume he is a manager as he’s in a corner office and keeps his door closed. If anyone sticks a head in his office and he quickly minimizes his game.

We given consideration to putting up a sign: “Red 5 on Black 6″ or getting an over-sized deck of cards and hanging them up in our window. Anything to try and alert him to the fact that we can see him.

Early last week I went over to see if he was playing as there is comfort in the familiar. “Hey, buddy is on YouTube!” Whoa! “YouTube doesn’t have that sort of video…” It’s just after 9 in the morning and this guys is watching a pr0n video, in full screen glory. After a minute or two, most of the people in my department are standing at the window watching buddy, watch pr0n.

Your tax dollars at work…

While this image from the New York Times speaks to the rise in American home values since 1997, one has to wonder how far certain Canadian cities *cough*Vancouver*cough* are from this sort of spike in values.

When a purchaser requires over 70% of their gross income to buy a house in Vancouver, I think it’s not that far off. I noticed an open house on my way to work a few days ago. Typical Vancouver condo, on Georgia St. where they were asking in the area of $550 per square foot. Not surprisingly there were no line ups of condo crazed people bidding the price higher.

Yeah, me thinks we’ll keep saving our pennies and renting a while longer yet.

First off, can I just say that I am writing this entry in Vi? Vi sucks… It does, however, give the impression that I’m hacking away in a heavy terminal session rather than updating my blog…

So I was in the Apple Store this week, picking up a copy of Apple Care. I can’t believe it’s been a year since I got my MacBook Pro. I always wait until the last day before buying Apple Care as the memory of what I paid for my Mac has faded and then I don’t feel that my laptop was $400 more than it actually was.

While I find it really expensive, I had it on my PowerBook and it more than paid for itself when I needed a new hard drive and then a replacement LCD. Of course I’m getting dangerously close to a rat hole so let’s continue.

I trundle down there and all goes well. The typically slick Apple purchasing procedure where you just talk to a guy and their wireless point of purchase pods do the rest. No lines and little waiting which begs the question of why Apple is the only retailer with this set up.

They even email your receipt based on your credit card number and Apple knows my Visa number very well. Buddy goes in the back to get my box, returns and I sign for my purchase.

Me: Can I have a bag?
Buddy: We don’t do bags anymore. We’re doing the green thing…

Seriously? I have to walk back to my office with this over-priced box in my hand? They don’t even have a paper bag? What the hell…

“We can ‘t show you an image because it’s sensitive security information” The TSA! Now with more dumb!

Um, how about now?

Failing at binning

Derelict Binner: Hey, do you know where a guy could get a cart?
Me: Have you tried a grocery store?
Derelict Binner: heh, yeah.

–Behind my apartment

Overheard by: no one

Inspired by Overheard in New York