the flying squirrel

Friday, November 23, 2001

It looks like November will be another month of few updates. Last week I did roughly nothing at work. I could have done updates then. I didn't, obviously. I'm left wondering what, exactly, I did do. Strange that.

This week, I'm really busy again. I didn't mean to be. They're making me do something I told them I really didn't want to do. (The thing in question involves primarily writing a Java wrapper for a library that was written (badly) about five years ago). This makes me unhappy. There's a challenge in there, but it's a fairly boring challenge. Once I get the main points figured out, it's all just really boring and repetitive. I can only hope I'll be hailed as a genius when I'm done.

Today, as of course you're all aware, is the thirty-fourth anniversary of the premiere of the greatest television show ever, Doctor Who. Traditionally, I mark the occasion with a marathon (I have about 30 serials—roughly 60 hours—of the series in my video library). Unfortunately, the last few years, things keep cropping up to make this difficult: CTRL-A shows, trips home, exams and the like. This year is no different. Tonight is our annual company Christmas party. So the marathon will have to wait.

In preparation for the Christmas party, I went out yesterday and bought a couple startlingly attractive Christmas-patterned ties. A couple because I couldn't decide which would go very well with my blue not-entirely-formal-but-still-quite-nice dress shirt. And I didn't want to buy another shirt, if for no other reason than I couldn't remember my neck size. It turns out neither go very well, but for no fault of their own. Ties most often seem to tend towards very dark. Which is good, I suppose, if you're wearing a white shirt. I would have liked something lighter. Oh well. The blue tie with little Santas running across will do well enough.

Also, as you're no doubt aware, Harvest Moon: Save the Homelands comes out this week. Which means, of course, I'm going to have to buy a Playstation 2 this weekend. I was thinking about getting a Gameboy Advance to play HM:GBC3, but that seemed a little silly. Then again, it does let you build irrigation channels. And you can have a pet pig.

Monday, November 5, 2001

Only two entries in October. Not for wont of things to talk about, really. I guess I just haven't been motivated. Right now, sitting at work without a whole lot to do (which feels wrong after being really busy for a couple months), I'm just kind of tired.

I got lots and lots of candy over the weekend. They were leftovers from CTRL-A's post-Hallowe'en extravaganza. I use the term "extravaganza" loosely, of course. I had fun, though. Alas, I can't help but think that all that candy had something to do with it. Especially Rockets! I love Rockets. Sugar is a drug.

Hm. Now there's an interesting American cultural oddity (along with the first place blue ribbon). It turns out that Rockets are actually called Smarties down there. This of course, led me to wonder what they call Smarties (The little chocolate candies from Nestle, known as they are throughout the civilized world). The realization is slowly donning that Americans don't actually have Smarties. This notion seems proposterous, however. It's like saying they don't have childhood. M&Ms seem a poor substitute. As much as I prefer them now (peanut only, please), I can't imaging growing up without Smarties. It's just inhuman.

This does explain why Smarties TV commercials are so dumb, though. They're probably European. Or Canadian. Canadian ad companies are really bad at doing kids commercials. Beer commercials, sure, but they can't seem to do stuff like candy.

Tuesday, October 23, 2001

I've been spending most of the last couple of weeks working, playing Diablo II and driving around. Driving around is the most fun.

I really like exploring. I've been wandering around the parts of this town that are too far away to walk or bike. I've also been going a bit further. Saturday, I took to wondering where Northfield Dr went and ended up in Guelph. So I explored Guelph a bit. I like the downtown. They've got some fabulous architecture... Much nicer than Kitchener, where their first inclination when they see an old buiding (that hasn't burned down yet) is to tear it down and build a mall that no one wants.

Driving is still a bit tense, though. I only like it if I'm the only car on the road. This doesn't happen very often. One irritating complication I've found around town is that, while there are lots of 4-lane parkways to get you around places, they have this annoying tendency to merge back to 2 lanes just as traffic really picks up. Or "right land must turn right" or "left lane must turn left." They never give you enough notice (and heaven help you in winter, when the snow and slush cover up the little arrows on the road). Which is one of the reasons I'm doing all this exploring stuff. I want to expand the map in my head.

Owning a car has also helped me to become a more efficient consumer. I've bought stuff in the last couple weeks I've been meaning to buy for months, but never thought it was really worth the effort to lug all that junk home. Now I can happily accumulate all sorts of stuff. That's good. At least that money isn't going into gasoline... I just ticked over 1300km and I've only put $40 into it ('course, it came with a full tank, only half of which was burned off on my trip back from Belleville).