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dECEMBER aRCHIVESNew Years EveHappy New Years everyone!I got a call from Ayako this morning and she was in a good mood. It was 10 PM in Maldives and her party was in full swing while I was still reading the paper and drinking coffee. Sounds like she was having a good time but I know she would rather be here. No resolutions this year; I never make them as I don't think you should wait until the end of the year to change something in your life. If something is wrong, just try to change it. Plus then I avoid the guilt of broken resolutions. Tonight The Shnewt's are having a party and I will be spending my evening with them. I think it will just be the three of us and I expect a hard fought game of cranium from Rachel. Yeah, right. I'm just hoping not to get too drunk and get on the train back to Metrotown. Check back tomorrow for an update and Sevenapril v2.2! I bit of a new look for you but a huge change codewise for me and I think it will make things a little easier to maintain. I've been working on it for a while now and it's looking good. Until then, all the best and stay safe. TopMonday 12.30.02 Nice day today... got some things done to wrap up 2002 and feelin' good. Finally got Simon's addy and sent him an email. It's gonna be nice to be able to chat more often rather than by snail mail. He bought a pretty sweet box though I imagine the girls will be using it the most. I need to scan some pics of them for the pictures page. *makes mental note* I just got back from having dinner with Carmen. We haven't been out together in a while and it was really nice to hang out with her again. I met her at StockHouse and while we were pool buddys, we really started to hang out more after I was laid off. This year has busy for both of us, so we have kinda slacked off a bit but we decided we would try more often in the new year. She got me this great Feng Shui crystal that is to bring me wealth and prosperity. I don't know if it'll work but at this point I'm open to anything. In any event, it looks nice and I'm gong to hang it tomorrow. We had dinner on Robson and then wandered around a little before stopping at Starbucks to wrap things up. As always, people watching on Robson is entertainment unto itself. Monday night and it's just packed with all walks of life from the very rich to the very drunk. I love living downtown. TopSunday 12.29.02 After living in this apartment since summer, I have finally attained sufficient motivation to hang some pictures. I guess I can stare at the walls for another six months given that I now have something to stare at. I always like this time of year. Christmas tends to rub me the wrong way at times, but I really like New Years. Not for the parties, though I usually find myself at one. I like the feeling of waking up early on the first with a fresh year to work with. A chance to right some wrongs and maybe do some of those things that you know you should be doing but never follow through on. This year, that feeling is particularly strong for obvious reasons.
In other news, I'm making fish sticks for dinner tonite and noted that the box was to contain six pieces of fish. In fact there are eight pieces. I hope the other two pieces aren't heavily battered fingers... TopFriday 12.27.02 It almost feels like a regular day today... I guess the holidays are toast for another year. Well, save for New Years. With that in mind, a new banner was thrown together and a new picture uploaded. I want to have the cam take pics of Denman and I have figured out how to do it but, of course, there is a problem. My plush, well-lit apartment is glass across the entire front (all 54" of it...) and when I turn a light on, the light reflects off the glass and bungles the pic. I'm not sure what I will do about this. I plan to set the cam up with the motion detector on when I am at work (should that ever happen again) and have the pics uploaded to the site automatically. It doesn't make much sense to store them locally as the theif would most likely steal the box while he was there. If I don't get a job somewhere soon, I'm going to email this guy and see if he is looking to branch out internationally... TopBoxing Day I hope everyone had a good holiday; I know I did. Christmas Eve was a ton of fun! Good company, good food, lots to drink and alternative forms of entertainment (pics to follow...). Naturally I paid dearly on Christmas day but it was worth it. I struggled out of bed and opened my gifts, talked to family on the phone and then went back to Neal and Ardie's for brunch. Brunch was good but not really the first thing on my mind at that point. Everyone was moving a little slowly after the evening before and we were reduced watching the Christmas log on TV and getting excited when buddy threw a new log on (it's still playing right now...) The Shnewt's had Christmas dinner at their place and while I was still feeling ill, it was very worth it. Mmmm... lamb. BTW, be sure to email Paul and let him know that there is a problem with his thumbnail page! My, such language during the holidays... I also ventured out today to mingle with the other humans and do some shopping. I used my Christmas cash to get a new video card and a web cam. Truth be told, I spent a bit more than my Christmas cash, but not much. The card is great! It's an ATI 9000 Pro with 64MB of DDR RAM. The the cam is pretty cool too! It's a QuickCam Pro 4000 that is so much nicer than my old one. Janice stopped in for a visit today as well. We like to get together when we can but I feel a bit guilty that she always ends up coming down here. Now that my car is parked, it makes it that much harder. Well, I'm off. I need to swap the video card out of my old box and put in the card from my new box TopChristmas Eve This entry hass been more difficult than I thought it may have been... What do you say on Christmas Eve? I guess I have many reasons to not be happy this year but I am happy and so thankful for my family and the friends that surround me. This time of year makes me realize how fortunate I am despite lacking a job. So with that in mind, I would like to thank my family and friends for all the support that has been shown to me. You know who you are, so I won't ramble off a big list of names but it's very appreciated. I hope all of you enjoy the very best of the Christmas season! TopSunday 12.22.02 Yikes! Me no feel good... I guess that means I had fun last night. Which I did! Karan and Claire threw a very festive party and judging by how I feel today, it was a blast. Actually, my state is unusual given that I didn't drink much and basically hovered over the food table all night filling my face. I didn't sleep all that well last night and then had a good nap again this afternoon but it did nothing to clear my head. Still it was very worth it. The Shnewt's picked me up and I was able to finally meet the Shnewtoodle! She was a bit stressed by the party at first but was very social after meeting everyone. Nice crowd too; I think I may have known half of the people there and it was nice to meet some different people and catch up with my friends. Too bad Spanky wasn't there but I guess I'll catch him at New Years. Before the party, Paul and I met up for a coffee and then he did some shopping for Rachel. Nothing very exciting there. What was fun, was stopping for a bite to eat and having Rachel bust him for eating fast food! She called Paul and he ignored the call as he was ordering and figured he would call her back. One would think he would know better; she called me and not knowing that what we were doing was wrong, I told her where we were. Icy silence on the other end of the phone, so I realize I have made a grievous error and try to convice her that I can see Paul and that he is indeed holding a green salad. I would have had a better chance of convincing her that we had unlocked the mysteries of cold fusion. I guess the morale for my male friends is this: I am always up for a good caper but I need to know about the caper beforehand as the wives tend to be smarter than the two of us at any given time. Rambling post today. I'm too stupid to make any sort of coherent entry, plus I don't feel well, so I will end it. The monitor is hurting my eyes so I am off to soak them. TopThursday 12.19.02 [EDIT] Yet another new banner added and I doubt that I am done yet. This is pretty addictive once you get going. [/EDIT] Well, the snowflakes had to go. I don't mind pissing off my viewers but when it starts to piss me off, something has to give. As a replacement (I need to stay festive, after all) I fired up Fireworks and with the help of Google found some images to create the © Official Sevenapril Banner of Festivity. As an added bonus, I have placed the © Official Sevenapril Christmas Card in the space normally reserved for the cam image. The © Official Sevenapril Christmas Card is not a joke (that's open to debate, of course) and it actually available here. I sent one to Shnewt but in my advanced state of festivitiy, may have forgotten to actually select the card, so I don't know what happened there. TopWednesday 12.18.02 Wow, what an onslaught of Christmas cards today! Thank you to all of you that sent me a card; my TV is even more festive than before. Thanks Lisa; I love the picture of the girls! I also got good news from my buddy Simon; the news being that he has finally given in and bought a computer! Very nice. It's going to be so much easier to to keep in touch with he and the girls. Simon & co. live in England and we have known each other for just about ten years now but we have never met. We are both rabid fans of F1 and met through the Johnny Herbert fan club. He asked me to send a text message with my email address as he had sent the card before the computer had arrived. I thought that would be a long shot but gave it a try. No luck. So I tried to call him and Fido doesn't allow me to make international calls. Strike two. I then got smart and decided to use the calling card that I bought in order to call Aya (I never did get through to her) and found that the company had gone bust. Strike three, so I had a nap. Carrie stopped by last night for a Christmas visit. I just love Carrie, we have had a lot of good times together though they tend to be few and far between. I can recall us being so excited when I sold my place because we figured we'd get together all the time but it hasn't really worked out that way. I think we have seen each other three times since I moved downtown. I think we're both nuts. I also wanted to thank Shnewt for finally realizing that I am always right though I am quite sure the score is more than 1-0. I would also like to clear up something... There was no heaving. There was a brave attempt to stay on my feet and remain alert which, I must admit, was a mixed success. Well whatever, it makes for a good story... Oh, and Karan is pissed and likely will commence hacking me at anytime... As such, I will be moving all my sensitive documents *cough*pr0n*cough* to a different box. :) TopMonday 12.16.02 Seeing that it's now the 16th, I would like to declare myself officially festive. Enjoy the flakes, sorry about your processor. More later... TopSaturday 12.14.02 @#$%*@&!@ Microsoft!! After shutting down my box normally last night, I fired it up this morning only to find that MSN showed no contacts. Maybe Karan is already on the attack! My stocks were still there as were my news alerts but no contacts. What a pain in the ass. I have re-added everyone (I think) but if I don't show up, just add me to your list. I've decided to use my pr0n name just for the festive season! So I woke up at exactly 3 this morning and was wide awake. After flopping around for a half hour, I got up and watched some late night TV before giving sleep another try. I noted with some interest that there are some pretty racy infomercials on at that time of night. I shrugged it off as it was a FOX station from New York but was surprised to see the same infomercial on CTV! 'Ladies' in bikinis, rolling around in the surf with a pr0n soundtrack playing. No dialoge; just a 'toll free' number to, I assume, talk to one of the said bimbos. TopFriday the Thirteenth ~ Part II I was chatting with Karan earlier this week and he (unfortunately for him) mentioned that he was thinking that he also should be putting a page together. Now I know this is a lame plan but it did work on Shnewt so I will try it on Karan as well. Something tells me that Karan will not fall so easily and that I might very well end up with a compromised system. Oh well, I guess I have the time to rebuild my box. Click Here The things I do to shame my friends into putting up a webpage. Damn, I need a job... TopFriday the Thirteenth It looks like golf is over for this season. Too bad as I missed 2 of the last 3 weeks for various reasons. Went to Neal and Ardie's last night and he mentioned that the winter greens were in place now. Winter greens really suck so we are going to pack it up until the spring. No complaints, we had a good run. I got together with Neil yesterday. Man it has been such a long time since we have gotten together but he is always on the go. Picked up some RAM for Dan's PC and then had a nice lunch before he dropped me back at home. Also, public apologies to Carrie after 'ignoring' her email for a week. I sent you the new addy kiddo and will call you tonight. I have been using one of those file trading services like a fiend all this week. As a rule I think file sharing is piracy and yet don't feel guilty about doing it. It's like there is this small window for me to grab whatever I want so I am going for it like a greedy bastard. What is strange is that I would never steal from a store even during one of the (seemingly) frequent riots that we have here yet I feel totally comfortable doing it from my livingroom. I guess I'll have plenty of time to consider the ethics of it all after I am arrested after posting my confession here. Nice to see that my fans are still behind me...
"All TV and no beer make Homer something, something..." Paul Shnewtoodle Lead Fluffer infowave® Tuesday 12.10.02 Oh man, I guess this was only a matter of time. I really need to clean up the old pages! New pics on the Pictures page as well. TopMonday 12.09.02 Had a bit of potentially good news today. First off, and most importantly, The Andre's are getting a beagle, not a Shnewtoodle *Whew* Secondly, Angelo noted that jaalaM secured $7 million US in financing. Hmmm, hopefully some of that will find it's way into my pocket in the days to come. Also, I updated the Pictures page. Just click on a thumbnail and the picture will open in a new window. Some of them will need resizing. I will trust your judgement in determining which items to resize... TopSunday 12.08.02 Home again. Took the express bus back and also got the coveted rear seat so I could stretch out a little during the ride. Had a good visit with everyone though I wasn't able to see all that I had hoped too. I also very nearly blew my lips off in an ugly BBQ starting incident on Saturday night. Whenever you think you've allowed enough time for the unburned gas to disperse, realize that you haven't... It was very relaxing to get away from things in Vancouver for a bit. Not that things are bad but sometimes you just need a mental break from your routine. I had been planning to update while I was there and went so far as to upload my ftp program so that I could use it there. For whatever reason, it would not connect to Shaw's ftp server and while there were other things I could have tried, I just wasn't all that interested. I also noted that The Andre's have decided to get a dog; I really hope it's not a Shnewtoodle... That would be ugly. TopFriday 12.06.02 Hooterville Update... The trip on the bus wasn't too bad; they have movies now which made it a bit easier to tolerate. Of course the brain surgeon that had all of our lives in his hands, left the movie playing during the 20 minute break in Merrit so I came back to my seat and the star of the movie was dead. Nice. The difference between urban and suburban living never fails to amaze me. I went out late last night for a smoke (that's any time after 10 PM out here...) and it was so dark and quiet. I could hear a car navigating a road on the other side of the lake but that was the only noise around me. Hopefully, I'll get one clear night to see the stars. You forget what they look like when you live in the city. Also, many thanks to Karan, Paul and Randy who all helped me get the files I need to re-image my dad's computer. I guess Dad thought that 'Bonzi Buddy' was neat and downloaded it without realizing that only Microsoft is more evil. Thanks guys! Upon my return, I will enjoy Dreamweaver in a special way... using notepad to do this really sucks. TopWednesday 12.04.02 I'm off to Hooterville for a few days. I'll be reporting my findings while I'm there. I'm sure that excites you... TopTuesday 12.03.02 Ok, so there were some issues when I transferred the contents to the new page templates... For some reason, the header image was looking for the file on my computer rather than the server. Problem solved (I think) and many thanks to all of you that pointed out my error. I hope to point out your errors some time soon. Tonight was the famed Infoslave reunion and it was pretty cool. I was also fascinated to hear how many people are actually reading my blog (really, that is so sad), you'd think educated people would have something better to do with their time. Well, whatever, thanks for stopping by! I had a nice chat with Leila and she seems to really be enjoying motherhood which is great. She was the QA manager when I was at IW but has since gone on maternity leave. She brought Sydney so that everyone could have their first look. Malones made Sydney stay in the restaurant as she is underage, which seemed strange. Maybe they have had trouble with four month old girls getting all liquored up and running amok. In any event, it was a good time and there were more interesting conversations than could be related here, so you'll just need to take my word for it. Right. I'm crawling back under my bed. TopMonday 12.02.02 Kind of a busy day today at least as far as a day in the life of the unemployed tends to be. I re-wrote all the code for the blog and if you view the source, you'll notice that I was tres anal when it came to my comments. Should make future revisions a wee bit easier. I also pulled the plates off my car and bought storage insurance; holy shit! it was $111 for 6 months. I can recall when I was at StockHouse I did the same thing and it was something like $85 for a year. Whatever, it's still cheaper than having it insured when I never drive it. I'm sure that by tomorrow I'll have all sorts of places that I need to get to by car. I have also been doing a bit of a portfolio revision. Once again, I had to call my broker and have them re-set my password after I couldn't recall it. Infowave has been going up so I wanted to get my shares and warrants in while it's up. My broker now tells me that I might not be able to hold the warrants in my account but they are looking into it. Logic would dictate that they will get back to me just after the stock tanks and the postage is more than the certificates are worth. TopSunday 12.01.02 Wow, December already! I'm not sure what to make of that actually. On the one hand, I am approaching the six month point in my 'vacation' yet on the other, I potentially could be four weeks away from getting going again. I choose to view the glass as half-full lest I throw myself off the balcony of my plush, well-lit apartment. I do know that I am not excited about Christmas but that is the same every year; I'll get into it around the 15th. Everything going on around me just pisses me off; Christmas, Christmas, Christmas! Not a word about the real meaning behind it, just pitches to get everyone to hurl themselves into Visa hell and every year the mindless masses do. And yes, I felt this way before I lost my job. But I digress... As you hopefully noticed, a new graphic of my very own creation now graces the page. I had a simple idea for a banner and this looks nothing like it but not bad for a first attempt I guess. Fireworks is pretty easy after you get the hang of it; of course I say that having used 0.0001% of the features. You can expect that the banner will change and truth be told, I have an idea for a new layout that I might start work on soon. TopOn a Web site, a blog, a short form of Web log or web log, is a personal journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site and its purpose. Topics sometimes include brief philosophical musings, commentary on Internet and other social issues, and links to other sites the author favors. The essential characteristics of the blog are its journal form, typically a new entry each day, and its informal style. The author of a blog is often referred to as a blogger. People who post new journal entries to their blog may often say they blogged today, they blogged it to their site, or that they still have to blog. Definition from WhatIs.com |
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