23 Apr 2007
This past Saturday all of the big furniture finally got moved to the new place. The movers were an interesting pair. Quite odd fellows you might say. When the people downtown saw them, they were worried the movers would try and mug them.
I wish I could say that everything got moved without incident, but that would be a lie. The moving truck’s battery died at my old place in Vancouver so they were a couple of hours late getting to the new place. Now this was really unfortunate, because Holly had made sure to get the guy coming to pick up my old couch and freezer and a few of her bookshelves to be there at noon (when the movers were supposed to be there).
After the movers had dropped everything off we headed out in search of computer desks. We didn’t find any desks yet, but we did find a chair that Holly likes. I have a hard time finding good chairs. For the moment I’m going to stick with my lawn chair until I find the “right” chair.
Then we headed out for a pub night with Holly’s co-workers. It’s amazing the strange things that can happen and be talked about when you get a group of librarians together. The food was good. The company was great. The hockey game sucked. I’m hoping Vancouver will pick it up tonight and beat Dallas out of the playoffs. I also hope that they don’t end up playing Detroit next round. I’d prefer not to have my team knockout Holly’s team, or vice-versa.
Sunday we got up too early and headed in to my apartment in Vancouver to meet the cleaners. While they cleaned we headed out for some breakfast. I was hoping that Le Gerard would be open for brunch, but alas they were not. So we ended up at Denny’s where I at a hojillion too many pancakes!
On the way home we stopped off at a pet store and we walked out with a pet. The kitten picked us, I swear. Once he got into my arms he went out like a light. A deep sleeping purring machine. I fell in love with him instantly. His name is Leonidas! (Leo for short).
Originally I wanted to name my first born son Leonidas (it’s a great name), but Holly wouldn’t have any of that. So she invoked the rule that you can’t name children after pets, and we got little Leonidas.
So we now have Max(imus) and Leo(nidas).
Max has been having a bit of a rough time lately, and he isn’t quite sure what to make of Leo yet. Max has had a bunch of his furniture moved out. A bunch of new furniture moved in. Plus, now I’m there a lot more often too. So when we brought Leo home he was a little distraught.
After a little hissing and a lot of growling he seems to be coming to terms with Leo. Afterall, we got Leo because Max seemed lonely so we wanted to get him a buddy to play with. This morning Max was chasing Leo all over the house. Leo thought that this was great fun! A wonderful game! We’re not so sure that Max thought it was a game though. Time will tell.
Leo, is a kitten without fear. He leaps and bounds and dives off of things without a care in the world. He loves to chew on cords, this needs work. Hopefully he will grow up to be a Spartan of a cat like his namesake before him.
11 Apr 2007
It is truly a strange thing, at the very least for me if not for everyone else, to see my physical world packed away into boxes. It can be quite distressing. Half of me thinks Oh my God! Is that all I have? while the other half thinks Dear Lord! Where the Hell did all of that come from?
You see, that photo above is essentially everything that I own. From clothes, to computers, to game consoles to books to, well, like I said; essentially everything.
Some of the things I threw out were a little hard to let go of, but for purely sentimental reasons. I seem to be becoming more and more of a sentimental person as I get older. I still hung on to a few things for no other reason than sentimentality. Realistically, what are the odds that I’m going to use my old baseball glove again? It doesn’t even fit anymore.
I realized that the root of my attachment to my faux suede sofa was that it was the first major piece of furniture that I ever bought. It wasn’t because it was the most comfortable couch in the world; which it isn’t. It wasn’t because it was my favourite colour; which it was. It was because it was the first non-computer major purchase that I had ever really made in my life.
And yet, even after a realizing all of this as I was getting rid of things, I still prefer to see it all go to a new home than to be recycled or junked. People at work have spoken for my old computer monitor and my couch so far. I’m still not sure if we’re going to try and keep my little freezer or get rid of it. We were thinking we might use it as a fridge if we could turn it all the way down and still not freeze pop. I haven’t started the experiment yet though.
I do have to say that a freezer could very well make the best pop fridge in the world. If you could get it right and the pop was absolutely as cold as it could be without freezing. Mmmm, mmmm, good!
In the end it felt good to finally have all of those boxes moved over to Holly’s place, or as I’m starting to call it “Our” place. It will take a little while to get used to saying that, but I like it :) All that is left is the big furniture. The big furniture consist of anything that wouldn’t fit in her car, which is about 1000x times bigger on the inside than it looks. We managed to move my apartment in three trips I think it was. There is probably another half one pending, but that’s still pretty amazing.
You can read about the details of the move in her blog. Her blog is a much funnier and better account of it all than I was going to do :)
I was thinking about perma-linking her blog in my links section, but then I was afraid she might link mine and that eventually her Mother would find all of the things I’ve said about her cooking >.> <.< So those of you who like it had better book mark it!
On a final note, the NHL Playoffs start tonight. You had best get yourself to a TV and settle in with a beer soon! There is nothing else like the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs!
Go Wings! Go!
23 Mar 2007
God said it would rain for forty days and forty nights, and that it would destroy every living thing on the earth… except fish.
It feels like it has been raining for the biblical forty days and forty nights, maybe even eighty days, but everything hasn’t been destroyed yet.
The oppressive grey that I once thought was so reverant has begun to weigh heavily on my soul. I’m sure that once we get a couple of weeks of sunshine I’ll feel better, but right now it’s terrible. I have no drive to do anything. It takes forever to convince myself to leave my bed and longer to leave my apartment for work. I seriously wanted to call in “grey” today. That’s close to sick right?
All of that adds up to today being a one song day. What’s that song? Alexisonfire - This Could Be Anywhere In The World. Why a one song day? The constant nature of one song is soothing in an odd way.
And now I leave you with:
Heavy mist shrouds the mountains
Light droplets fall from the sky
The fire and blue are hidden
Held captive by water up high
Cherry blossoms hang heavy with rain
They bow as though they pray
For the shining source of life
The yellow hidden beyond the grey
- Hidden Pugmarks
20 Mar 2007
This past weekend I started packing. I only managed to pack up six boxes worth of DVDs. Just a couple more boxes of those to go.
Somehow this step of packing has finally made the upcoming move real. I’m excited and apprehensive and over joyed and all sorts of feelings over it. Really I can’t wait for it to be over and get to spend more time with Holly :)
The big stress for me in relation to the move, and everything else lately has been money. I have been living beyond my means for too long it seems. So it’s time to button down for a while. I was crunching numbers yesterday in relation to how much money I spend at work and… I figured it out to be close to $3000 a year just on lunches and snacks. Yeah. Exactly. Isn’t that just sickening? With some minor shifts I’m pretty sure I can drop that by 80%.
I’ve started playing some X360 hockey in anticipation of the playoffs. It’s just that time of year. The air is filled with hockey. This is one of those many moments that it is great to be living in Canada, where everyone is talking hockey. Even the people who don’t really know anything about hockey are talking about the Canucks around the city.
I on the other hand am talking about the Red Wings, oh and sometimes that 11 game losing streak that the Oilers are on after getting rid of Ryan Smyth (Kevin Lowe should get fired for that…). It was like Colorado letting Joe Sackic go, or Detroit letting Steve Yzerman go back when he was playing. You can’t throw away the heart of your team over a few hundred thousand dollars. They would have made that all back in the first round of the playoffs. Unfortunately, now they won’t make the playoffs.
Let the random rambling continue…
Work has been growing increasingly frustrating for me lately. I had a realy great week a couple of weeks ago when my TD was away on a trip. Now that he’s back though everything is becoming more and more frustrating. More than once he has randomly blamed my work for issues that show up in the game, even though so far my code has only ever been found to be at fault once that I can think of. We’re somewhere in the ballpark of 27 me, 1 him; and yet I still always seem to be the first to blame. It is reaching the point where I really do wonder, Is it personal? The real kicker is how much development time I lose proving my work that exists works perfectly.
I’ve already decided, assuming no promotion, that if he is working on this title again next year that I’ll be switching teams. Whether that means leaving the studio or not is still as of yet undecided. As much as I love the game I’m working on, the frustration just isn’t worth it.
And with that I’ll stop my ranting. I’ll save my rantings on software development processes for a later date.
12 Mar 2007
This weekend, due to the monsoon, torrential downpour, flood conditions, whatever you like to call it, was a heavily movie themed weekend.
300
Saturday night Holly and I headed out to see 300. I had been looking forward to seeing 300 for quite a while, and I must say, it did not disappoint me in any way.
The movie was everything I had hoped for and more. It has definitely landed a place in my top five movies. I’m not sure of the exact position yet, but I’ll know better after I get to pick it up on DVD and watch it a dozen times.
Reviews:
Holly: It was better than I expected it to be…
Me: That was $#%(#$% awesome!
Borat
On Sunday we decided to rent some movies. We picked up Borat because everyone and their dog seems to like it. It was a piece of pop culture which everyone was making references to when they said things. We thought we should see it.
All I can say is that it was 85 minutes long, and I would like 80 of those minutes of my life back. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t interesting. I can’t figure out why people like it. Maybe I am just too far out of touch with the times. Although, if being in touch with the times makes Borat funny then I’ll just stay out of touch.
Reviews:
Holly & I: The part with the bear was funny…
The Departed
Now this was a good movie. It is a continuation of making good movies for Scorcese (who for some reason I frequently confuse with Oliver Stone). The actors were great. The story was great. The ending was… you decide for yourself.
Holly & I: That was a good movie.
