My World

I bought Brian an XBox 360 for his birthday and he was chuffed to bits!

It arrived via Canada Post on Wednesday although strangely the game that was also ordered went to the post office instead of the work office.. leaving me with a swish new console but nothing to play on it :-(

The day was saved though by the lovely lady at the post office who had the game there waiting for me (as opposed to having to go the next day after 1pm). So after a really nice meal at the Pasta Bar with Brian and Julia, we headed home and I revealed the early birthday present.

Wow. I’ve never seen anyone so chuffed! We’re talking full on hand in front of mouth, gushing with “oh my god are you fucking kidding me wow oh wow really oh my god”.. repeat as necesary.. seriously stunned, surprised, made up, quite the happy recipient! :-)

The system’s great too.. awesome graphics, great features, and the XBox Live stuff is pretty neat too - you can download movie trailers and demos of games as well as buying stuff online, unlocking arcade type games from demos to fully fledged versions.

I’d rant and rave more but the energy’s lacking.. and I’m half watching Grey’s Anatomy.. and I love it..

Link: podcast17.mp3 (26:54, 12.3Mb)

Ladies and gentlemen, a fanfare please! After WEEKS of skipping Mark McSherry’s Australian Slang Quiz, it finally made it into the podcast!

Things I wanted to mention but forgot: Kevin got a new job with Air Canada and starts on Friday! Tim got a new job and started today! I was meant to hang out with James tonight but he bailed! But it’s all good cos here I sit, on the sofa, with my laptop, catching up on TV that I’ve recorded but not gotten round to watching.. On right now: Grey’s Anatomy. I love this show :-)

Here’s how this week’s podcast looks:

00:00 - Intro
02:00 - Female drummer?
03:30 - Mark McSherry’s Australian Slang Quiz (FINALLY!)
06:00 - Podsafe Music: Candy Butchers (www.candybutchers.com)
09:30 - Podsafe Music: What’s the deal?
10:15 - Grey Cup
10:45 - Podcasting over Christmas?
11:45 - Intelligence in the workplace
13:30 - XBox 360
19:00 - Jeremy Kyle’s Capital Confessions (www.capitalfm.com/confessions)
22:00 - Call for help: Any electronics gurus out there?
24:45 - Small world
26:00 - Feedback request + wrapup
26:54 - DONE! :-)

Podsafe music supplied by The Podsafe Music Network.

Corrections: I’m think I said “beads” but it sounded like “beard” when I was talking about the Grey Cup. And I also said “footballers” instead of “football fans”. We’ll ignore the million times I screwed up with the audio - it’s been a long day!

URL: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/45390/wizards_of_winter/

Tomas at work sent this link to me and it’s AWESOME. Check it out - this guy geeked out on lighting up his house for Christmas with a fully synchronised/choreographed sound and light show!

I’ve tried to find some technical information on how it’s all done, cos I’m a big fan of that geeky kinda stuff (check out www.blinkenlights.de for something similar) but with no luck so far.. So if you find any tech info on how Carson Williams from Mason Ohio did his snazzy display, please let me know!

Link: podcast16.mp3 (42:42 long, 19.5Mb)

After a few weeks of doing the shortish thing, I figured it was time to let rip and do a longer one. Things that were missed this week, in no particular order:

• Mark’s Aussie Slang stuff.. AGAIN! (will it ever make it on the show?!)
• Mark’s Aussie music quiz clips (maybe next week if you’re lucky!)
• A rant about the way some people fuss over their pets
• …and I can’t remember what else, but I’m sure there was something!

Here’s what did make it in to the show this week:

00:00 - Intro + Cringe-worthy comments on How It’s Made
04:00 - Jared’s Music Quiz answers
07:00 - Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire (with convenience fee tangent rave)
09:30 - Tomas B And The Neighbour Of Fire
11:00 - Election rant
13:15 - Direct Buy exposed!
16:15 - Random voicemails
19:45 - JunK-Y’s voice changing Asterisk app
21:15 - Adam Curry’s stalker and various issues surrounding that kind of thing
32:45 - Comments made all round the world and their local effects
36:30 - Chris Moyles’ Sting Ring feature (from the BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show)
40:00 - Brian says hi after his narrow escape from death
41:30 - Feedback request + wrapup
42:42 - DONE! :-)

Corrections:

• Renee’s show was weekly on live365.com, not daily as I said at around the 36:00 mark.
• The Goldie Looking Chain song was called “Guns Don’t Kill People..” not Dogs Don’t.. The dogs reference came from a Chris Moyles parody that had me confused..

I voted today. And here I sit, on the sofa, with my laptop, watching some election results show on Shaw while I spod around on the net..

Sam Sullivan won the vote for Mayor of Vancouver, beating Jim Green by a few thousand votes. And I voted for him, which may or may not have been the right thing to do - I really don’t know enough about the issues that he’s for and against, but I do know that Jim Green looks like a slimey toad and he doesn’t seem trustworthy to me. Judging a book by its cover? Sure, I totally am. But you have instincts for a reason, and my instinct is not to like the bloke much.

I had a quick look at the City of Vancouver website this morning and they have a bunch of candidate profiles online. You can check them out here. Check out Joe Hatoum - a young guy from Maple Ridge who thought he’d have a crack at standing for mayor. He’s got a website at www.604industries.com. He scored 96 votes, which isn’t quite as many as Sam Sullivan’s 61,543 but fair play to the guy for stepping up and taking an interest I think.

What do you think of government? Of the voting procedure? Of accessibility? Like… on the ballot sheet today, votes were asked to vote yes or no on 4 questions regarding the government borrowing money to pay for certain projects without needing to ask about it again.

Why aren’t we using technology more for this kind of stuff? Mail a question out, get people to vote online, or via phone, or even via mail if they must.. More power to the people, let them feel like their vote makes a difference, help them feel involved. Maybe that would help the turnout. This election has 132072 ballots cast out of a voter eligibility of 407040. That means 32% of people who could vote, did vote.. less than a third? In some countries, voting is a legal obligation. You don’t vote, you get fined.

Meh.. Politics.. it’s all fucked up really isn’t it?

URL: http://markarmitage.org/blog/?p=63

Check out Mark’s rant at the URL above. He’s on about places that charge you an extra 25 cents when you use Interac to pay for whatever it is you’re buying. I’ve got to say, I’m on side with him on this one. It kinda bugs me, and I mostly can’t be arsed going anything about it, but it’s like why the fuck are you gouging me an extra 25 cents? Are you honestly telling me that you’re not making enough profit on what I’m buying already? Does it actually COST you that much to receive the money in to your bank account? If it does, it’s probably time you got a new bank.. but let’s be realistic - it probably doesn’t, right?

I created a new category for the random thoughts that cross my mind during my day to day pottering around :-)

Isn’t it funny how some women have huge arses despite not actually being very large generally? Like.. pear shaped arses?

At work, doing work, with my iPod on.. finish listening to a couple of episodes of The Daily Source Code plus listening back to my latest podcast and the audio switches to music - it’s the first song off Robbie Williams’ new album.. He bursts in to song within 2 seconds with “Here I stand victorious, the only man who made you cum“, with emphasis on that last word.. it made me grin :-)

I’m sure I had another random thought from earlier in the morning but I can’t remember what it was now.. ho hum..

I get a daily dose of inspiration from Fast Company magazine delivered to my inbox, and one that arrived a few weeks back was quite timely and relevant. The quote in question was “Moving on means letting go of your own old role”. I’d left it marked as unread in my inbox as I wanted to comment on it, and have only now gotten round to doing so.

It was relevant at the time because I was part way through working my notice period with Voxilla and totally stressing about tying up all the loose ends, leaving things in a neat and tidy state of order. Of course, it’s pretty much rediculous to get stressy and anxious over that kind of stuff - it’s kind of like that book my parents got me for Christmas (Eat That Frog), which basically says there’s a million and one things you want to do at any one time, and you’ll never get all of them done, so the sooner you accept that, the happier you’ll be.

Anyway.. point is.. it’s a kind of weird period of readjustment right now, being back at the company I used to work for, working with people I used to work with, and sure the job is pretty similar, but a lot’s changed in the 2.5 years that I’ve been gone.. So far I’m taking it in my stride, mostly just lying low, learning how to play the game again..

It’s funny though.. cos I could definitely have been described as a bit of a disruptive force when I was there previously.. and so far I’m flying mostly under the radar.. I have managed to get a wiki installed and got a couple of guys playing with it but it’s all a bit hush hush and experimental right now. Tomas installed phpBB a while back, and there was a bit of activity on there but not much.. The problem with all these things is adoption - you need to reach critical mass before the tools become useful and used by the masses. And getting that large scale adoption is always the problem because there’s always the issue of ownership.. who owns this project/product, which box does it run on, who’s going to support it etc etc.. and past experience has shown that doing things on a trial basis or maybe saying “sure, let’s give it a whirl!” isn’t something that happens too often..

Why? I don’t know.. maybe it’s the fear.. fear of the unknown, fear of not being in control, fear of it making someone look bad because suddenly people can be more efficient and productive? who knows.. All I know is that will no doubt be common-sense defying stands made against what I (and others) would call “progress”, because that’s how it goes in the corporate world.. The adjustment right now is deciding how much I’ll stand up and push for change versus sitting back and accepting that the wheels of progress turn very slowly indeed.. watch this space I guess..

I love long weekends.. because that extra day off is like a bonus, something you can do something with as well as having a regular weekend to look forward to. That said, Friday flew by faster than you can say “day off work” and I really didn’t get up to much or have much to show for it. In fact, the whole weekend was a bit of a blur..

Some chilling/vegging, some hanging out, some food (Boston Pizza did us proud), some work, and here we are, it’s Monday already!

We hit the movies on Sunday and watched Derailed. The film was pretty good, the cinema-going experience not so much.. the biggest guy sits down next to me, full on bulky leather jacket, totally encroaching on my personal space.. ARRGGHHH.. Whatever.. the film was good, 7 out of 10, nice twist.. Brian thought it sucked.. Josh said he’d give it a 7..

Link: podcast15.mp3 (20:35 long, 9.4Mb)

Shortish, and I didn’t really have that much to say.. I forgot Mark’s Aussie Slang stuff again, so clearly it’s just the longest running example of slackness EVER.. Here’s how it shapes up this week:

00:00 - Intro
01:00 - Music Quiz rerun (you can still enter!)
04:45 - Nathan’s Futureshop Ad
06:00 - Canada Post suck
09:15 - Telemarketers suck
10:15 - Back to work: The new (old) job
15:00 - XBox 360: First looks
18:30 - Movie: Derailed
20:15 - Feedback request + wrapup
20:35 - DONE! :-)

Yeah, I fucked up the opening.. second week in a row I’ve done that eh? But what’s done is done, and this podcast’s done! And not too late either.. I’m happy :-)