Jason's Collected Wits  [entries | profile | friends | calendar]

The view from down the street... January 16, 2004 | 10:07am [ mood  |  awake ] [ music  |  The Brilliant Green - Sayonara Summer Is Over ] Yup, you can pretty well tell that I've abandoned this blurty. Thought that my blogging days were over and done with. But surprise, surprise, it's been resurrected at LiveJournal! So please come visit me there and join me in seizing the carp! say something

A long night... June 29, 2003 | 05:43pm [ mood  |  drained ] [ music  |  Matchbox 20 - If You're Gone ] I saw the Hulk movie last night. It wasn't my first choice (or my second or third for that matter), but it was the only movie that fit our schedule. I've just got one word for this movie: ridiculous. It looks like Ang Lee wanted to make an action-drama, which was probably a good approach given the material. But the lousy over-acting and nonsensical events just made the whole thing laughable. I cracked up a couple of times during the movie, and it wasn't because of the comic relief (not that there was any). And the movie was so damned long to boot. There's very little story here folks. And why mess with the original storyline? I guess they thought it was chic to introduce this nano/genetic-engineering angle since it's such a hot topic these days. Blah. On a brighter note, the CG in the movie was pretty impressive, though not wholly convincing. Very good facial expressions and muscle tone on the Hulk, but he still had a cartoonie look to him. Rendering human-like creatures is very difficult, though, so it was a pretty good job overall. After the movie was when things got somewhat interesting. The movie ended late (11:00pm) so we didn't go anywhere (we did grab some bubble tea). It was simply an "ununsual" night with a few surprises. Suffice it to say, I didn't make it home till 8:00am. It's so easy driving around town early on a Sunday morning. :-) I did eventually get some sleep between 9:00am and 1:00pm. Good thing I've got nothing to do today (which can't be said for all involved). It has certainly messed up my workout schedule for today, though. Ah well, that's what tomorrow is for... 3 comments | say something

It's a HOT one! June 26, 2003 | 10:46pm [ mood  |  cheerful ] [ music  |  BoA - Jewel Song ] Actually, it ain't that hot anymore, but it certainly has been this past week. We've gone through this year's first legitimate heatwave. We're supposed to have thunderstorms tonight, marking the arrival of a "cold" front. The high for tomorrow is a much more pleasant 25C. Much of this week has been spent indoors with the AC cranked up. As usual, the AC is cranked up too high at work. Do we really need to turn the building into the world's largest fridge? I'm wearing long sleeves on the inside and I gotta take off my shirt if I want to go outside. Sheesh. It certainly doesn't help our electrical situation. All this AC is really putting a strain on the province's power generators. Good thing it's cooling down tomorrow. The weekend ought to be great for outdoor activity. Bah, what a pointless post. I had originally wanted to write about my joyride in a re-built 1962 Morgan (or thereabouts), but I'm too tired now. Nor am I in the writing mood anymore. I tell ya, I've really been neglecting this blurty since the nice summer weather started. Oh well. 1 comment | say something

Just another day... June 20, 2003 | 06:41pm [ mood  |  tired ] [ music  |  Avril Lavigne - Things I'll Never Say ] Yesterday morning, I attended a Rogers AT&T Wireless presentation where they announced the launching of their latest offering: the Siemens SX56 Pocket PC phone/PDA. The whole event was pretty lame overall, but hey, they served a nice breakfast so it was worth getting up early (6:15am). They had a nice buffet table with bagels, croissants, fruit, juice, and these really tasty mini cinnamon rolls. Yum. It was possibly the largest breakfast I ever had. :-) Well, there really wasn't much else to do while we waited for all the attendees to show up, so I just stuffed my face. It was a lot better than what my co-worker was doing: talking to some arrogant fool from TD Bank. What a moron. Anyway, the presentation itself was as expected: a droning and pointless advertising spot. This one was especially irksome since I typically detest Microsoft products, and Pocket PC is no exception. I wasn't terribly impressed with the device either. Leave it to Rogers to roll out a piece of crap like the SX56 and attempt to charge $900 (!!) for it. And let's not even go into the monthly service charges. Oh well, at least we were well-fed. They also gave each attendee a little souvenir--a little metal case that housed a pen and a metal keychain. Kind'a cool. Of course, both items were stamped with the Rogers AT&T logo. Can't win'em all... After that, I had my usual long and unproductive day at work. I had arranged to play squash at 8:00pm, so I was just waiting for that. I played with my friend "S" this time, the first time we've played together. She's not much of a squash player, but that's ok--she's pretty fun to be around. :-) Surprisingly, we managed to play till 11:00pm. The time just flew by. Admittedly, the play wasn't as intense as I would've liked, but we had a pretty good time. I hopped on a bus at 11:40pm and was home a little before 12:30am. Of course I didn't get to sleep unitl past 1:00am. Long day. I really have to get some more sleep this weekend...which means staying off the phone. Sigh. say something

Summer June 15, 2003 | 01:26pm [ mood  |  cheerful ] [ music  |  Enigma - Return to Innocence ] Well, it finally feels like summer around here. The official start of summer is only a week away, so better late than never. The kids will be out of school soon, much to their joy I'm sure. A teacher friend of mine is also quite glad for this time of year. I tell ya, teachers are overworked and underpaid. As for me, it means that I'm spending much more time out and about. We're having a gorgeous weekend thus far. I did a lot of skating/jogging yesterday, so the legs are a tad tired. Gotta take it easier today unfortunately. What else....oh yes, this past Thursday was a bit of a highlight in my relatively short career--I stayed late, real late, at work because of production issues. It was the first time that work problems actually prevented me from going home for the day. It wasn't entirely our fault--we've repeatedly told the client that we needed to schedule some downtime so we can do some maintenance. The stubborn SOB's just refused any downtime. Well, now who's crying??? Imagine never changing the oil in your car's engine and driving it around for 5 years. The result? Sooner or later, you're gonna get a spectacular failure! And usually when you could least afford it, like during the middle of a business day! All we make is software, though, so there wasn't any smoke or shooting flames, nobody killed, pretty dull overall. But it did require us to stay in the bloody office until 1:00am or so, trying to rebuild the database from scratch. We then went to get a little shut-eye (stayed at a co-worker's place downtown) and we were back around 8:30am to finish the deed. Things were more or less up and running by noon, but with a few glitches that had to be ironed out over the next few hours. It's still not quite done. My co-worker friend is doing the final clean-up this weekend. Good luck to him! On a lighter and geekier note, a got a letter from my alma mater the other day. Apparently, my recent donations to the Math Faculty qualifies me for membership in the Dean's Prime Number Club. Oh goody. One of the "benefits" of this club is that I get assigned my very own prime number. Cute, huh? For those interested, I have been given the very attractive prime number 18089. I should get it emblazoned on a t-shirt or something. I was a little disappointed, actually. I was hoping for more digits. :-) 2 comments | say something

Rat Race June 07, 2003 | 01:17pm [ mood  |  calm ] [ music  |  S Club 7 - Never Had a Dream Come True ] Coincidentally, there was a second charity event this week. Thursday night, I participated in the 3rd annual Bay Street Rat Race. As the banner shows, this event is organized by Scotiabank in support of the United Way of Greater Toronto. "Bay Street" represents the financial sector of Toronto (and indeed all of Canada), much like "Wall Street" in the US. As such, the participants of this event were drawn mainly from the people who work in and around Toronto's financial sector. The turn-out was pretty good--somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 rat racers I think. Of course, the event is more about fun than racing. Participants were encouraged to come in costume. Awards were even given for creativity. Quite a few people did come dressed as "rats". A number of lawyers showed up wearing their court robes. Yeah, it's like running with a parachute, but hey, they didn't exactly care about their finishing time. :-) Our company was represented by 11 participants (not too shabby since we've got only about 100 employees). The best result was achieved by "S"--he managed to finish 5th. The man's like an animal, I tell ya! Of course, you would expect that from a guy who has participated in Eco-Challenge. The rest of us did ok by our own standards. Actually, at first we were somewhat disappointed (those of us who really cared, anyway) because we were off our usual 5K times. Later, one of us actually plotted the race route in a computer program. The program came back with an actual distance of 6.4K. Ahah! That explained everything. Taking that into account, I had my best 5K run ever! Woohoo! say something

Ride For Heart June 04, 2003 | 07:08pm [ mood  |  chipper ] [ music  |  NRG - Hit Song ] This past Sunday, I and a few friends participated in the 16th annual Ride For Heart in support of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. Basically, they close down two of Toronto's highways for a few hours and let bikers and inline skaters have their fun on them. It's a very popular charity event. This year, 14,000 riders participated (the largest crowd yet), raising about $1.45 million. The picture to the right is a shot of bikers on the Don Valley Parkway (taken by the Toronto Sun). My friends and I were doing the inline skating thing, so we were on the Gardiner Expressway. I think one word sums up the event nicely: amazing! Wow, we all had a great time. It's just so cool skating on a highway, especially one that you often drive on. It was incredible seeing so many people on bikes and skates (especially bikes--I think about 80% of the participants were bikers). The event was extremely well organized, too. I was very impressed by their preparations: Dozens of friendly volunteers on the highways to lend whatever assistance you may need. On our route, the volunteers were excellent skaters. They were a God-send to some of the less experienced skaters. For us skaters, there was a rest stop at the 5 km turn-around point, where they provided drinks, powerbars, and fruit. First-aid was also available. Porta-potties were there too. :-) There were regular patrols by paramedics and police along the routes. At the end of the event, buses were sent out along the highways to pick up any stragglers. At the finish line, each participant was given a gift package with some product samples and pamphlets. Yeah, it was mostly advertising, but a nice touch nonetheless. They provided lunch! Sandwiches, drinks, fruit, etc. It's not easy feeding 14,000 people! We knew one of the volunteers at the food building, so he kept pushing food our way. Haha! There were a bunch of volunteers walking around with Polaroid cameras offering to take pictures. They even put the pictures in a cardboard frame. Nice! Plus a lot of other stuff I can't think of right now.... We all had a pretty good skate. We did the recommended 20 km route. I was up for some more, but a couple of us decided to call it a morning, which was fine. We milled about the finish area along with several thousand other people. The weather was great, people were excited, it was fantastic! We sat outside and ate lunch. It was fun just watching the endless stream of bikes flow by as people started to go home. We also did a little extra skating along the lake-front. Very pretty. The rest of the day was taken up by a roof-top tour, a trip to IKEA, a visit to a train station, a first look at a friend's condo, a game of squash, a sushi dinner, and some very good conversation. It was a long day. I was up at 5:00am and didn't get to bed till 1:00am. But, wow, what a day! Woot! 1 comment | say something

A keyboard...? May 31, 2003 | 10:48am [ mood  |  amused ] [ music  |  Utada Hikaru - Distance ] This posting is rated 14+ :-) A while ago, I made mention of a new whacky keyboard. Well, I think the "keyboard" shown below takes the cake in terms of whackiness (pardon the pun). It's known as the "OrbiTouch" keyboard. Click on the image for a larger view. I think we all know what it looks like! A review of this device is available here. This is definitely the best quote from the review: "Despite--or maybe because of--the OrbitTouch's similarity to the female anatomy, it's very comfortable to use. Your hands rest very naturally on the twin domes. ...the mere appearance of the domes implies that they should be turned and twisted." I'm pretty sure the reviewer didn't manage to type that with a straight face. Some of the more clever folks over at slashdot had a pretty good time with this one. Some of the better comments: "I think a victoria secret bra might be a decent keyboard cover." "Make work a plesh-ah! So, instead of clacking away on a keyboard all day I can basically feel up boobies while I work? Is there a downside to this?" "This will never work as most geeks have little to no experience cupping their hands around two large mounds - the learning curve is just way too steep." "Millions in research and they left out the nipples. Didn't the QA department notice this minor glitch. Oh, you mean it's actually a keyboard?" "OrbitTouch?? Sucky Name. You guys shoulda gone with the more obvious BoobieBoard." "What they are missing is...a joystick in between..." 1 comment | say something

Adventures by the lake May 29, 2003 | 11:36am [ mood  |  tired ] [ music  |  Evanescence - My Immortal ] On Tuesday, I went downtown to hook up with a co-worker friend so that we can skate the lakeshore trail. I dropped by the office first, which surprised a few people. My imbecile manager tried to say something clever. I ignored him. The twit. Of course, some people were not surprised to see me. I seemed to have developed a strange habit of visiting the office during my vacation (provided I'm in the city). I did the same thing during my Christmas vacation. To be fair, I'm there to visit certain people. I'm in no way in love with my workplace. Hell, the only reason I'm on vacation now is cause I just wanted to get away from the damn place! So I hook up with my friend and we walk back to his apartment. He's a real water sport junkie, so he starts telling me about his ambitions for a jet ski. But not just any jet ski, he wants this jet ski, the latest and greatest. He gets pretty excited so we start walking along the waterfront to see if he can get a spot to house the thing. This eventually turns into a hunt for the mysterious "dockmaster". We were told by a couple of reliable sources (including a member of the Marine Police Unit) that the dockmaster keeps a rather large Great Dane for a pet. After scanning the docks some more, sure enough, we spot the dog resting blissfully on one of the smaller boats. No sign of his master, though. We head in his general direction. Amazingly, the dog then gets off the boat and starts walking across the dock. "The dog knows!" my friend exclaims. He was just way too excited. That theory was put to a quick rest, though, when the dog got back onto solid ground. Our canine friend lifted a hind leg and proceeded to take an enthusiastic pee. He then walked right past us without a glance. What did we do, then? We followed the dog, of course! Sort of a low point in my life there.... But, the dog does lead us to this booth where, sure enough, the dockmaster is sitting. What the hell does a dockmaster do all day, anyway? I swear, this dockmaster was more like a "Godfather". He and his goons probably run the waterfront racket. Turns out that it'll cost my friend around $300/year to house his precious jet ski in one of the slips, which was fine by him. Later, I ask my friend the obvious question: "Who, exactly, gets the money?". His response: "Who cares? As long as I get my slip!" he says with a gleam in his eye. Ok, but you better hope that people don't show up later and start offering you "protection" for your jet ski. If it comes to that, you're on your own! Oh yes, one more tidbit about the dog. It's a Great Dane, so it's big, and it's coat is this orangey-brown colour with black, vertical stripes. The dog's name? Tiger, of course. :-) Anyway, we did eventually go for our skate. I've never been on the lakeshore trail before, and it was a humbling experience. I really couldn't keep up. At first I thought it had to do with my recent encounter with salmonella, but then I realized it had more to do with my skates. I think the bearings were in pretty bad shape (not that my friend believed me, mind you). Well, we had a pretty good skate anyway. We went from York St. to the Humber River and back again, a total distance of roughly 17 km (I think). I didn't want to push it much more given my recent illness. We were pretty hungry after the skate, so we went to some dingy basement joint for dinner. Actually, the place was fairly decent. The food wasn't bad either. The last thing to do for the evening was to take my new squash racket for a spin. I was very much looking forward to that, and I was not disappointed! Woo! This is one sweet piece of equipment! Swings like a dream. Really makes you feel like you're smashing that ball. Great remedy for angst! Now I've gotta try it in competition. Bah, I really need a new squash partner. say something

A disjointed day May 27, 2003 | 01:01am [ mood  |  tired ] [ music  |  Kuraki Mai - Love Day After Tomorrow ] Woke up in hopes of getting stuff done today. Told myself that I had to get my squash gear in order, so I headed out bright and early....around noon. My first stop was actually a haircut--the lid's getting a little shaggy. Here's one advantage of keeping a journal--I can actually say with certainty that my last haircut was on March 27 (wow, eh?). So my hair is plenty short now. This always surprises people. It's kind'a funny. I usually go a long time between haircuts (I just can't be bothered!), so people get used to my full head'o hair. They always forget that my hair starts short. Ok, there were two things I needed done in terms of squash gear: (1) get a new racquet and (2) get the grip on my old racquet rewrapped. I went to Sport Mart first cause they were a new store. Man, were they useless. So I went over to old faithful: National Sports. They've got a very competent racquet guy there. He got my old racquet rewrapped lickety split. Unfortunately, their selection of squash racquets was lacking. Apparently, I was "out of season" for squash racquets. What am I, hunting deer? Since I was rather itching to buy a new racquet, the dude recommended the very nice (yet rather expensive) Head i.140 racquet. I've never used a Head racquet before, but what the hell? The dude was real nice, anyway. :-) Besides, the racquet came with a real nice carrying case! So, mission accomplished. Got home, dicked around. After a few hours, got a call from "A". Actually, got several calls from her. She was being very unproductive while her car was being serviced, so I politely offered to take her some place where she can achieve better productivity. That some place turned out to be Hillcrest Mall. That was ok since I had never been there before. Had some whacked out weather on the way--you could see bright sunshine in front of you but there was heavy rain pounding on the car. Freak. I ended the day kind of depressed. I tell ya, talking to "A" is either a high or a low, nothing in between. Oh well, I'm just plain tired now. G'night all.... 4 comments | say something

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