A waste of bits and bandwidth

Today was the infamous EI ‘Information Session’. Lord, I knew I was in for it as soon as I got on the #3 Main St. bus… A lingering stench of cigarettes, beer and BO greeted me as boarded the bus and no, it wasn’t coming from me. There are quite the number of ‘characters’ riding that line…

The meeting wasn’t all bad and didn’t go too long. It was funny to see all the paperwork that was generated and it was mostly silly. “Oh, all this paperwork! I’d better take my 90 minute break before I get started on my filing….”

We were chosen randomly because there had been no activity with our claims; we hadn’t requested any services so they wanted to make sure we were aware of our rights and obligations. Sadly, some people couldn’t even fill out the form without help… how sad.

Truthfully it might have been useful if you had never had the pleasure of being on EI. What is also true is that they could create yet another flyer, stick it in your first mailing and that would have been good too.

Shifting gears, I saw the video of Nick Berg being decapitaded in Iraq after hearing the audio on the radio. It’s the most horrific thing I have ever seen. In fact you don’t need to even see it; you just need listen to him scream as those al-Qaida bastards saw away at his neck while they chant “God is Great”.

It wasn’t quick and and it wasn’t painless… If it doesn’t make you furious, I have no idea what would. He wasn’t even a soldier… he was just a kid. He shouldn’t have been there but he didn’t deserve that. No one does, not even al-Qaida themselves.

I think it should be on TV so people know what is really going on there and the type of ‘people’ that need to be dealt with. Kill a hostage? OK. Shoot him. War is hell, but they went out of their way to make this gruesome.

If you want to see it, it’s here. Brace yourself. It’s not there for entertainment; it’s there so that people can see what these al-Qaida animals are like. And why they need to be extinguished.

So I talked to the headhunter today and the wheels are in motion though it may be later than the 17th. Given how the weather is, that’s ok but I’d sleep better if I had actually signed something…

MiHwa lost her Blenz mug and asked me to pick up a new one for her. No problem so last week I shipped it to her. She still doesn’t have it and it turns out I sent the mug to her old address… Nice. The shipping was twice what the mug cost… So the one I’m going to send tomorrow will be one of the more expensive ones I ever bought.

I had a nice weekend in Hooterville… It was too short and I was coming back to sign a contract so it’s too bad as I would have stayed a day or two longer. Of course this also means that I’ll have to go to the EI brainwash session on Wednesday.

The letter starts off pleasantly, describing the meeting as an ‘information session’ and that it’s to help me find a job and then ends with bold text threatening to cut my EI if I don’t show up. Sounds like fun to me…

Nothing like sitting in a meeting put on by a federal government agency; 90 minutes of my life that I won’t get back and untold dead brain cells. That’s even worse than a developers meeting.

Lastly, tonight I discovered that Andrea can guesstimate a woman’s size by looking at a picture. She’s a woman of many talents…

I pulled out my lumbering hulk of a mountain bike this weekend with the faint hope that I might be able to salvage it. It’s been sitting in the bike locker for almost two years so it was in need of some work. With a can of WD-40, a rag and a tire pump that I found in the locker I was able to get it going enough to take it for a spin.

It still needs work but it was fun to go burning around Stanley Park and the seawall. It also saved me some cash (of which I have none) because I was really giving some thought to buying a cheap one to rip around on. On Monday I even ran into Jen and Annie Ho who were jogging on the seawall. I almost felt healthy…

I need to do something to stem my ever burgeoning waistline and this is a good start. I don’t think I could run very far before my lungs would decide to depart my body but this way I can get the heart rate up and maintain it at a manageable rate. Yay me…

I also have good news on the job front in as much as I have found one. Nothing has been signed yet but it should be finalized late this week or early next. Right now it’s a three month contract doing server support but there’s a realistic chance that I could be made full time after that. Maybe if I wear tight clothing for three months…

FYI, the new banner is a picture that I took of the North Shore from the 24th floor of the Coast Hotel. Ain’t I artsy?

I’m off to the Shnewt’s to watch Kill Bill in preparation for seeing Kill Bill 2. With that in mind, I figured why not share the fun with you? Saturday night is always good for a movie, right?

Many of you will have seen this already as it’s all over the place. I’ll tell you now that if you don’t enjoy taking pleasure from someone else’s misfortune it’s probably not for you.

It’s not funny. Well, that’s not true; it’s funny as hell but if you want to feel good about yourself, you’ll say it’s not funny. I’m sure she was fine… Live TV is fun! With that that having been said, sit back and enjoy.

The second one could only take place in Japan. Actually, I’m amazed that this doesn’t take place more often; I guess there’s normally not this much room on the train… She’s late for work (requires QuickTime).

FYI, if you’re unemployed and it’s a fine summer day, don’t mention to Spanky that you’re going to the beach… You kiss Catherine with that mouth? Tsk, tsk, tsk…

My interview went pretty well yesterday and I think I have a decent shot at getting an offer. Of course I always feel that way so I’ll make no predictions and won’t bring it up again.

Lately I finally jumped on the RSS bandwagon using SharpReader. It’s a nice, free reader though you will need to install the .NET Framework which didn’t thrill me but it’s not that big a deal. While I like it a lot there were a few things I didn’t care for such as not being able to sort my feeds.

Today I decided to give Bloglines a shot and I really like it. It’s web based so I can see my feeds on any PC I’m using. It also has a Tivo like feature in that it’ll monitor my feeds and make recommendations based on my subscriptions. It’s free and very cool.

Those of you who play Grand Theft Auto will be familiar with the Chatterbox station. Talk radio that is funny enough to listen to on it’s own. Guess what? I found the real version of it! The Phil Hendrie Show is too funny for words and is really worth a listen.

He has these ‘guests’ who have an incredibly stupid position or cause and present their case. For whatever reason the people who call in to the show do know that the ‘guest’ is part of the show and get really irate as they try to have an intelligent conversation.

One of the funniest were the two guys who felt that house cats should be banished to an island in the South Pacific. “We’re developing tiny parachutes to use in an air drop…” Naturally all these horrified cat lovers called in to defend their cats and the hilarity ensued.

“You know when your cat kills something and brings it to you? You know what that cat is saying to you? You’re next…”