Been a slow week around here. Went for a coffee with Brian yesterday after telling him that 2 pm is too early to be going for a beer. Gave Neal a call as Friday is our coffee day but he's sick, so that was scuttled.
My whole social life is centered around Starbucks these days. It's cheap and I can kill a few hours and see some people. For the employeed out there, this is what you can look forward to if you lose your job. Yes it does sound good until it becomes your life...
Shnewt sent this link to the video of Johnny Cash doing that cover of Hurt by Nine Inch Nails. The video is pretty good and I like his version the more I hear it but I still like the NIN version better.
Those without a technical bent can consider this blog entry completed as I will now commence some geek speak. Thank you for visiting.
Once again, I am having another go at Linux and therefore I am having to swap operating systems on my machines. What is a bit of a source of disappointment is that I have a Pentium 200 (yes, really) with 192MB of RAM that I had put Linux on and for some reason it was so slow as to be unusable. Just a memory pig and I don't know why.
I have decided to use that box as an MP3 server and for file storage. The disappointment is that with Windows 2000, that little P200 hums along nicely, happily storing my files and playing MP3s and not even that bad for surfing. Linux is to be so great for just that sort of machine but not in my case. I think it must be a configuration issue but when it takes five minutes for a menu to open you tend to do something else and not go back.
This did give me a chance to play with Autoclave and it's a really neat little tool that permanently erases a drive. I wrote a bit more on the Tools page and uploaded a ZIP that you can extract to a floppy and start nuking drives everywhere... Nice utility.
The W2K box is just about done and from there I'll nuke the box that I got from IW this summer and begin the Linux experiment anew. Wish me luck...
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Tuesday 02.25.03
I had a nice lunch outing today with Kim. Actually, it was Kim, Staci, Simon and Adam. All former Infowave employees and all but Adam were able to quit before being laid off. It started as a lunch with Kim and she said she was going with Staci but that I should come anyway and it grew from there. We had a decent meal at Malones and it was good to see them all again. Staci mentioned that she and Simon were going to four days a week so I guess I will file jaalaM away as 'unlikely'.
Speaking of girls that I used to work with, I got an email from Cheryl today. Wow, we haven't seen each other since my going away party at the shop and I don't recall the last time that we talked. She's sold her apartment, is engaged and is due to have a baby in April. She's a real sweetheart and obviously has been busy...
I still need to set up Three Degrees on my machine. Karan was asking me to do it yesterday and I got distracted and forgot. I'm not even totally clear on what it does; a media plugin for MSN, but they sure ask for a lot of personal information when you go to download it.
The 'Nucks are sure spanking Atlanta tonight. I don't know about tossing Jovo from the game though. The guy was back on for the next shift.
Well, back to the game.
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Monday 02.24.03
Rachel has given me the ok to post her link, so go have a look. It's on the Shaw servers now, but she should be using 'allthehubbub.com' shortly. It's funny that she figured out the problem with her style sheet and it turned out that the filename was in uppercase. We spent a good amount of time looking for some big, complex problem and it turned out to be so simple.
So I re-did my resume today, following the advice of that headhunter I talked to last week. I hate writing resumes. He says that point form is all the rage these days and mine was in a paragraphical state. Apparently people just don't have the time to actually read anymore and just want to scan. Maybe that's the reason that the calls have been few and far between but I'm not expecting the calls to come flooding in.
I emailed HR in North Van. (I don't know why I refuse to use their name here... I guess because I haven't to date I don't do it to be consistent. All of you know anyway...) and they still haven't made up their mind so I guess that's good news. That's how I'm choosing to look at it; they haven't said 'no' yet anyway.
It came as no great surprise to me that the company that I did the phone interviews with emailed and told me they only hire smart people. Truth be told, it says something about them that they even took the time to send me an email. Most don't which pisses me off to no end.
I was also amused to get my T4 from Infowave today as it came in a plain envelope and my address was hand written. I was chatting with Shnewt and was laughing that they must be saving the good envelopes for people who matter. He said that he had to give them my address! This after I had given them the new one in July... HR even emailed me to confirm it last summer. Go figure. I can't imagine why they're going belly up.
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Saturday 02.22.03
I wish that I had the time to have updated you yesterday, but at the last minute, I ran out. I did some domestic crap before meeting up with Neal for our traditional Friday visit to Starbucks. I also tried to get caught up on some email and perhaps you were selected for this rare honor. I'm still a lame email leech.
The Shnewt's gave me a call last night to see what I was up to and not surprisingly it was jack, so I went up there. Rachel was doing some baking and also needed a hand getting her page in shape, so I picked up some baking supplies and departed to see if I could help. We got her page doing what she wanted and she dished up a lovely salad for me, so it was a great trade off.
Later, Paul and I watched Minority Report while Rachel fired up the oven. The movie was pretty good; sort of a Matrix inspired theme and I'd recommend it if you are looking for something to watch. I think I finally left around 2 with some rice and other Spanish dessert stuff (flan?) whose name escapes me.
So far, today has been a great Saturday. It sort of reminds me of when I was working and the weekend meant something. I went out and voted and the line was huge, winding out onto Denman street, though it did move fast. I really hope we get the Olympics but CTV did an informal phone poll during the evening news last night and it came to 53% to 47% in favor of the games so it could be close.
For no apparent reason, I've gone on a cleaning and organizing frenzy and gone out to grab some groceries. Probably has something to do with all the time that I spent with Rachel last night. That'll pass in time...
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Thursday 02.20.03
[Update] I was reading Shnewt's site this evening and he was potificating about the upcoming Olympic vote this Saturday. Now far be it for me to get all political, I don't really get very personal here nor do I talk about my 'feelings'. Mostly because I don't have any, but that's between me and my shrink.
Anyway, Paul is very in favour of us getting the 2010 Winter Olympics, as is Andrea and I am firmly in that camp as well and as such will be voting a hearty 'Yes' on Saturday.
Being evil and with very little to fill my evenings, I decided it might be amusing to call Shnewt and have some fun with him by telling him that the 'No' vote was the only sane vote and only inbreds would vote 'Yes'. Imagine my horror when Dr. John answered the phone! Maybe Shnewt finally got to see Chicago after all... [/Update]
So I was sitting here this morning, doing all the fascinating things that unemployed persons do and this song came on the radio. Johnny Cash doing a cover of 'Hurt' by Nine Inch Nails. Now Johnny does have the sort of style that might work with a NIN tune, but it really didn't work too well. It was just so flat compared to the original. NIN rocks, so I listened to some for a while because I have no schedule and I can.
I updated the Tools page and I'm giving thought to some of the others that still need work. I think the Pictures page will require the most work; I did the original by hand but I think a gallery of some sort might be a better approach. Right now, it's a little unwieldy and I think that's part of the reason I haven't added more images to date.
A telling example of how pathetic my life has become is that I am giving serious consideraton to watching an entire episode of Survivor this evening. I've always taken pride in the fact that I've never seen an entire episode and generally avoid all forms of reality TV. Big Brother being the exception; for some reason that show appeals to me and I've watched every season. I count that among my many character flaws.
Shnewt might not have anything to say, but he does have a cool cat on his page.
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Wednesday 02.19.03
[Update2] I just had to post this farewell letter to Microsoft. It was written by David Stutz, former Microsoft executive and posted on his website. "Stop looking over your shoulder and invent something" A very good read for those interested in the open source movement. [/Update2]
[Update] Welcome to Sevenapril v3. This baby is all mine as far as code goes and it's a big step up for me. There are improvements to come and I haven't had time to implement all my ideas but I will in time.
Not everything is working perfectly and some pages are yet to be created but here it is. It only took about 90 minutes to go from realizing that I had had a made a grave error to getting this up on the server so don't expect that there aren't bugs. There are but I'll get to them. Don't forget to update your favorites. [/Update]
Herro. Did you find me? If you're reading this, I guess you noticed that your old link didn't work unless you came from Sevenapril.com. Sorry about that, I should have mentioned it earlier but shame on you for deep linking!
In prepartion for version 3, I re-did the site structure and truthfully, got a little carried away and before I knew what was happening I had deleted all my files off the server and uploaded all the new ones! Party!! Then I realized that no one was going to know what had happened to the site. Bonus points to those of you smart enough to find your way here; I'll tell Shnewt later... Judging from his last post, he's having trouble with the whole linking concept anyway.
To further confuse the issue, the address will be changing again when version 3 goes up. Is that annoying or what? Actually, that's really stupid... maybe I'll bump the schedule up a little and just start it now. Yeah, sounds good. See, those voices in my head are useful sometimes.
I had my interview with the headhunter yesterday and it went ok. They seem nice enough and I figure that I have little to lose at this point. You never know, something might come of it though in all likelyhood it would be project based work.
I also got a call from a place that I had applied to a while ago and had a brief phone interview which was followed my a second phone interview this morning. The interview this morning was a mixed success; I hate when they ask you these random questions that really don't seem to have any pattern and just seem so, well, random. I expect a polite "Thanks but we only hire smart people" response from them.
Ok, so I realized that this whole site structure update was poorly planned. What else is new? Don't get me started on how pissed I get when people bother me with their problems. Please direct any complaints regarding this process here. Good then. Thanks.
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Monday 02.17.03
OK! I'll update the damn site!
I had a busy weekend. Went to dinner at Subeez on Saturday evening. If you like average food and indifferent service, it's your spot. It was Nicol's birthday (Nicol is from Austraila and runs with Rachel) so we went out to celebrate. Some of his friends from work were there as well so we had a nice little crowd.
Nicol is a great guy and also quite gay so we all piled over to the Odyssey for a few drinks afterwards and it was good fun. I haven't been in a gay bar in a long time and they are definately different from the other clubs. You really need to have a good look at the women there before you assume that it is indeed a woman. Even then, there's no saying that she's on your team anyway.
I had called Brian and he came down and met us though he had a bit of a wait after my 15 minute estimate turned into quite a bit longer after Rachel had to change (again) and then Paul and I had decided a drink was in order while we were waiting.
We got there just as the line was forming but it wasn't too long a wait and before long we had a drink in our hands. We had a great time on the patio watching this completly pissed guy try and stay on his feet. He was really in rough shape and we amused ourselves by trying to guess the time that he would hit the floor.
Some people that Brian had met while he was waiting appeared and they were cool too. This one guy started talking to this perverted old guy whom we called doctor John and for whatever reason decided an Irish accent would be fun. Doctor John never had a clue... Bloody hilarious.
When we finally left sometime after one and noted that the drunk guy was now propped up against the building, still on his feet.
Sunday was good as I wasn't too hungover and the Daytona 500 was on. I'm not a fan of NASCAR but to me, it's the start of the racing season so I watch it. Rain delays kept it from going 500 miles which sucked. That's four hours of my life that I can't get back.
Paul called Sunday and tried to get me to go with him to Coquitlam to see Chicago... Gay bars, musicals, WTF? Maybe he has something he'd like to tell me. I don't mind the gay bars but I'm not going to see any damn musicals even if Calvin said it was fantastic. I really have to draw the line somewhere.
In reality, I had a lot to get done on Sunday, which I mostly accomplished and I just didn't have the time or cash for an afternoon out.
Today I was back on the job hunt and for this one company, I had to build a web page containing my cover letter, resume and answers to the questions they had for all applicants.
No big deal but they wanted it hand coded and and it took up a good part of my day. Doing a page by hand is no big deal, it's not like I was trying to impress them with a bunch of javascript and Flash but you tend to forget how much faster Dreamweaver allows you to create a page from scratch. Finally, it was done and looked good and I go to send the page to them and my mail bounces! *curses like a sailor*
In the end, I think their email server had farted or something as I got it through but I wasn't a happy camper for a while this afternoon.
I've also made the switch to Opera for my browsing pleasure. My trial expired and the space for the ad is already accounted for in the browser so it's no big deal; not enough to have me shell out $40US anyway. Opera's not perfect but it has a ton of features that make you ponder what would be possible if there were real competion amongst browser manufactures.
This concludes todays transmission from the mothership.
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Friday 02.14.03
What a strange day... I don't know why I feel it's strange other than it's just a feeling I've had. Of course this entire week has not been one to remember so maybe it's just that I didn't feel as shitty as I have been feeling.
Today also marks the day that I moved to Vancouver thirteen years ago. I can remember that day clearly as I'd come from Calgary and it was snowing like crazy and continued to snow for two days. I found that to be unsettling to say the least. Still, it didn't deter me and it has to go down as one of the best things that I ever did with my life. Too bad that it took me so long to finally get downtown.
When I look back on those early days, they weren't always the best but I survived them and I'll survive these days as well. Sometimes I wonder about that and then I remember some of the harder times and this is just one of those times.
I came across an interesting site that presents some views on the evils of Microsoft and how they do business. Obviously, the author is pretty biased in his views so take it with a grain of salt but he provides plenty of third party evidence to back up his claims. It should also be noted that it's an excellent resource for open source alternatives; browsers, office apps and operating systems. There are a ton of Microsoft Office replacements that are free, don't suffer from feature bloat and are totally compatible with Microsoft Office.
I'm bothered by Microsoft's business practices and frustrated by their products at times but I'm not as obsessed as this guy. I wish I would have stuck with the Linux experiment this fall. I was all set to make the switch and somehow it all kinda fell apart. I'm planning to have another go at it as I don't need two boxes running for all that I'm currently doing and developing my *nix skills is important.
I've been using Opera for a few weeks now and it's a very cool browser. Have a look here for some of the best features in Opera. I'm dreading the day that my trial runs out and I'll have an ad running in it. Truthfully, it probably is worth paying for but I have other things to consider at this point like food and stuff.
I guess the bottom line is that I'll always need a Windows box running for some needs. In a way, it's comparable to Palm in that it's the platform that most developers develop on and for.
In job related news, I am still without one. However I did get a call from the company I'm interviewing with and I'm still in the running for the job. The manager liked me but thought that someone with more experience might be a better choice, which is probably true. However, HR really likes me and feels that I'd be a great fit and given that the HR rep has been there a year compared to a month for the manager, she's going to try and convince her that I would be the best choice.
Keep your fingers crossed; I should hear something at the end of next week. In the mean time, I'll keep looking and get ready for the interview that I have with a head hunter next week.
blah...
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Wednesday 02.12.03
Another beautiful day in Lotus land today. What a shame that I have no where to go. I did go for a walk to get some air and just get out of the house for a bit (if 450sf can be considered a house...).
Had a chat with Audrey tonight and she's back home in Hong Kong after spending some time travelling. She's an x-stocker and was part of the Thursday evening snowboard team which consisted of her, myself and Rudi. She's a great friend and I miss getting together with her.
I made some changes to the page tonight adding some links and removing the iframes for the cam and calendar. Why I ever thought that creating more pages would make this easier to maintain is beyond me. When the new version goes up, it'll all be on one page (I think) which, is how it was before I changed it the last time.
The beta site (CAUTION! BOOBIES!) is much better on many fronts, though not really ready for use yet. I've been using style sheets for the positioning and they make it so easy to put everything exactly where you want it.
With that having been said, I don't really like the colors or the placement of everything and I need to do something about the navigation. Before, none of the entries in the menu would open in a new window and now they all do. I think I know what I need to do, but I haven't done it as I'm too busy sitting here being unemployeed and thinking of ways to make Rachel mine.
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Tuesday 02.11.03"Slip, slidin' away..."
La, la, la...
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Sunday 02.09.03
I'm happy to report that my snot production is slowing down, though I'm still pretty run down. Damn, I hate being sick and being sick when you're unemployed is just adding insult to injury.
I had varied responses to my email exchange with Michael on Friday; some thought it was hilarious and others, namely Shnewt, thought I was cranky... Perhaps I was feeling a bit short due to my flu.
For the record, Michael and I went back and forth a few times beyond what I posted and he's not a bad guy nor are there any hard feelings between us. He isn't the first one to email me regarding that XXXXXXX but as soon as they go "XXXXXXX" that ends the thread right then and there. I just don't have the time. Well, I think we all know that's not true, I just don't have the patience.
It also gave me reason to consider the whole meaning of this blog. I find blogs fascinating and read the blogs of my friends as well as tons of people that I've never met. Each one is as individual as the person hacking them out.
Andrea bares her heart and soul on no uncertain terms, Karan is almost like a tech portal peppered with personal tales, Shnewt can become quite passionate in his writings when the mood strikes him and Angelo brings us the Zak cam and tales from his life. The list goes on...
I guess what I came to realize from my exchange is that my online personality is a magnified version of me. Those who know me realize that I have a dry sense of humour and that I can be pretty sarcastic when I have a target in my sights. I'd like to think you also realize that it's just as likely that I will be the target as you. I guess what I have found here is that this blog is the storey of my little life but as told by Midbach.
As you may recall, Midbach is my pr0n name and has slowly morphed into my online persona. Me, but magnified a little bit... "What a fascinating turn of events..." I make no apologies for this; it's just the way things have evolved.
Anyway, with that out of the way. Today was moving day for Neal and Ardie and I'm happy to say that they are settled into their lovely Beach Ave. apartment. The move went well and I held up pretty well given my illness though I did passout in a chair for about an hour. Katrina is still a bit freaked and was spending a good bit of time under the bed (nothing wrong with that. It's served me well...) but I think she'll be fine in a few days. Neal dropped me off after dinner and I am ready for bed. A sad statement given that apart from a lot of driving, I did jack all day.
I'm going to watch the Trailer Park Boys and go to bed while I imagine that Midbach will be surfing pr0n all night. ;)
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Friday 02.07.03
[UPDATE 2] Go to Andrea's site!! Do it now!! [/UPDATE2]
[UPDATE] Well, I've hurt the feelings of an anonymous stranger...
*a tear*
- Mark,
- Sorry for making you angry.
- I tried to be polite and just asked you a question.
Probably I did not make a proper search for that call.
- Anyway I've never expected from a stranger such burst of anger in such a case.
- I promise not to trouble you any more.
- And do please watch your words.
[/UPDATE]
Dammit, stupid people piss me off...
Yet another person getting getting XXXXXXX and emailing me about it...
- Hi,
- Why do you try to reach me through my home phone in Burnaby?
- You call me every day?
- If you had to say something important so why not to leave a message?
- Regards,
My considered retort...
- Micheal,
- Why do you bother me with your problems?
- Let me guess, you did a search for the XXXXX and saw my page come up so you figure it's me.
- You don't take the time to actually view the page and what I wrote.
- Did you do a reverse lookup on the XXXXX to see where it was coming from? I didn't think so...
- I had the same frustration as you, but I looked into it and did the research before I started blindly emailing people…
- In fact, after a little looking, I found when you did your search on Google (11:49:37 AM) and what you searched for (XXX-XXX-XXXX).
- I guess a title like 'XXXXXXX' doesn't cause you to actually view the page. How lazy and arrogant given that my page was the only one returned.
- By this evening, you'll be able to do a search for your email address...
- Regards,
- Midnight
Well, I feel better now! Damn is it cold out! What's up with that? I decided to walk to my interview from the seabus today and was pretty chilled by the time I got there. It's a comfortable walk but I wouldn't want to do it everyday.
I think it went pretty well and I know that I have HR on my side. I don't really know about the QA manager; she seemed to like me well enough and I have to say, she was somewhat cute. After Shnewt and Spanky, that would be a nice change!
I should hear something next week (man, I hope I don't have to call...) but they don't really know if there will be more interviews or not. The manager has only been there a month and everything is pretty new at this point. I'm excited about it; it would be a great chance to start programming again and doing some SQL work. They're moving to .NET and there's lots of XML and ASP.NET in use so it would be a lot of fun if I get it.
Keep your fingers crossed.
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Wednesday 02.05.03
Hmmm... I wonder if I can get some of those pics that Shnewt was trying to sell. I already have the name...
In a case of perfect timing, I felt a bit of the flu coming on Monday evening. Just perfect when you have an interview the next day. I was really feeling shitty and went to bed early only to wake up at 3 AM and find that I was even worse. Great. Just when I think it can't get any worse, I was then serenaded back to sleep by the sounds of a woman in the building doing something that I haven't done in a long time... *places pillow over head*
My interview yesterday went very well and I've already been asked to return on Friday for a second interview. I did feel a bit better but not 100%. I feel better today and hope that I'll be in good shape by Friday.
In an example of what a small world it is, the woman that interviewed me knew Carri L'Heureux (pronounced L'Heureux) from when they worked at Mulitactive. It turns out Carri has moved to MacKenzie permanently which would explain why she never turns up at any of our social events.
I also wanted to congratulate Rachel on getting her Canadian citizenship yesterday! The country is a far more organized place with her officially on our team. Congrats Rachel! *hug*
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Sunday 02.02.03
I had another busy day today. Finally got out with Neil, Dan and Brian for brunch down at English Bay today. You'd think it was wouldn't be that hard to get all of us together once in a while, but trying to get our schedules sync'd is only slightly more difficult than my cold fusion experiments.
I also decided to experiment with some different browsers on my test box. I tried out Mozilla and Opera but was pissed to find that there is no Windoze support for Konqueror. For whatever reason, I just love Konqueror.
All of them are cool in their own way and all have their downsides as well. Opera is actually quite nice, but I'm not going to pay for it, Mozilla blows this page all to hell and I really don't want to do a browser check and write a separate page for the four percent of people who use it. Plus, it's a total memory hog to boot. I have this thing about Netscape after being Netscape boy when I was at StockHouse.
Anyway, this all lead to a rather disturbing discovery today... Shnewt apparently wants me dead. A man who put me in drag and admits to crying like a school girl when he doesn't get his way and now he wants me dead. That's nice.
I'm sure this has nothing to do with fact that Rachel and I have been having an affair for the past 18 months but at least his parents like me. Too bad that the seating screw up at Dim Sum yesteday prevented me from having a word with them regarding Shnewt's language. Maybe at the wedding.
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Saturday 02.01.03
[UPDATE] Just got back from Dim Sum and it was fun! For whatever reason, the restaurant didn't put our tables together which was a strange choice. At first they weren't even in the same room but Rachel was soon on the job and got the staff into action. In the end we were three tables apart. I have no idea why they didn't think that we would want to sit together but we had fun at our table. [/UPDATE]
CNN: "What is it we're looking at here?"
NASA: "Well, it's breaking up..."
I woke up early this morning and heard them talking about this so I jumped out of bed and put on CNN. What a site that was... Hard to believe what was on the screen. I can remember the Challenger incident like it was yesterday and I'm sure that today will be burned into my memory as well.
It's hard to say what the impact of this will have on the space program. It took almost three years from Challenger before Discovery flew. Back then there was no manned ISS. I hope that it doesn't come down to the Russians to go up there and get those guys down. In any case, I'm not the best source for news; go to Google for the most up to date news.
I'm off for Dim Sum assuming that Karan doesn't forget to pick me up! Being that it's Chinese New Years and this is Vancouver, it should be busy. To my Chinese friends, Gung May Fat Choy!
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On 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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