Pay Parking-Meters by Phone!

Wow, is this ever cool! I look forward to them rolling it out to all the meters here. I can see it being really handy.

TP In the Urinal

You know, it's things like this that really make me sceptical about the general intelligence of humanity. Twice now in two days, I've seen a big wad of toilet paper sitting in one of the urinals in the washroom here at work, yellow with soaked up urine. It's disgusting. Anyone with eyes can see that urinals have a grate at the bottom, and will NOT flush anything through. The washroom in question services this floor of the building. This entire floor is rented by the company I work for. I've generally thought, and still do, that the people I work with here are pretty damn smart. A good portion of them are probably what I'd call the cream of the crop, or at least close to. Yet somehow, on a floor of (I'm guessing here) about 100 people, with maybe 60 of them being men, we end up with stupid crap like toilet paper in the urinal.
I expect this kind of stuff in a highschool, or a bar or club, even in a restaurant. People in general are pretty stupid, in my opinion. I'm rather shocked to see it here though.
If the human race is getting this stupid, can I quit? Is there somewhere I can just get off the train?
Hrmf. Stupid people.

My Weekend

I had a pretty awesome weekend, so I just want to recap it here before I forget.

Saturday:
Sara took me for an early birthday breakfast (about a week early) at Cloud 9, a revolving restaurant downtown. Fun :)
At 11:00, there was a harp recital and potluck lunch at her harp teacher's house, so we went to that.
Afterwards, we were rather tired, so we went home and naped, until around 5:30.
Then we called up Conan, and went over there. We ate nachos and played Carcazone(sp?) for a while with him and Jen, then we all sat around and played video games. Sara snagged Josh's Gameboy DS Lite and played Mario. Totally oldskool style! Conan and I played some Ratchet & Clank, an absolutely hillarious futeristic battle-robot game. Or something. The in-game commentary was pretty funny, if a bit repetative. Jen played something on her laptop... not sure what she was playing.
We got home around 1am.

Sunday:
I slept in till around 10:30, then drove Sara to work so I could wander down 4th ave on Kits day. There was soapbox racing, which was pretty funny to watch (wish I had my camera with me), and I even got to see Gordon Campbell drive some 12 wheeled limo soapbox down 4th ave.
I spent the rest of the day soaking up tons of sun. I washed and vacuumed the car, and sat around in the backyard reading. I also wandered around Heather park talking to my parents on the phone, and then called my old highschool friend Tegan, who I haven't talked to for a while. I talked to her husband Carn for a while, because she was at work, and then talked to her later when she got home. Turns out they're planning on going camping the same weekend as the big f00f camping trip, so I've invited them along. Regardless, I'll have a chance to see them while I'm in Calgary.
Later in the day I picked up Sara from work, and we picked up some quick groceries. At home, I BBQ'd some steak for dinner. Yum! Turned out great. After dinner we watched the first 3 episodes of "24", season 1. I think I've got Sara hooked. I've seen season 1 before, but it's long enough ago that I'm really enjoying seeing it again, and I'm looking forward to watching the newer seasons too.

All in all, it was a pretty awesome weekend. :)

Doom Doom Doom!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I broke things in production on Thursday morning. As a result, I provided entertainment at our weekly department update meeting at 9:30 this morning. The tradition at this company is that people who achieve particularly spectacular screwups get to sing at the Monday morning meeting. Since much of the office here seem to be Invader Zim fans, I made my Monday morning debut singing "The Doom Song", as performed by Grr.
The lyrics are as follows:
I'm going to sing the doom song now.
Doom doom, doom doom doom doom doom doom doom!
Doom doom doom, doom, doom doom doom doom doom doom doom dooooom,
doom doom doom dooooom,
doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom
doom!
doom!
doom doom doom doom doom doom
doomdoomdoom doom doom doom
doom doom doom
Doom doom doom then end.
Unfortunately, I didn't get a helium balloon last night. Even so, it seemed to go over well. I'll be doing me best to ensure this isn't required again.

PDA

Wow, do I ever need a new palm. I just pulled mine out to check something, and it looks like the backlight has bit the dust. Generally, my Tungsten T has been a piece of crap since I bought it. Within the first year, I had to exchange it, because the digitizer was drifting like crazy. I had to recalibrate it every time I took it out of my pocket. The replacement they sent me has been no better, after the first couple months. Half the time it decides it doesn't want to bother reminding me about things I've set up reminders for. Yeah... useful. Makes me wonder if getting another Palm product is such a hot idea, but the Treo's seem to be the only decent PDA/Phone combo out there, and I'd like to stop having to carry two devices.

Sea... Planet! Sea... Earth!

Saturday was great.
Sara and I spent the afternoon at Stanley park with lots of friends. Devon and Jenny, and others from Academy Duelo were there. Sam was there too, with her new beau Peter.
There was some sword fighting, which I didn't partake in, and some frisbee, which I did. Sam and Peter and I tossed the frisbee around until we were about ready to drop.
Later in the evening, Sam and Peter came over to play some games
First up was Settlers of Cattan. It was Peter's first time. Sara and Sam rocked the game, to nobody's surprise, and Sam won it mere moments before Sara would have.
Next was Pictionary, which I've owned since October, but hadn't played yet. Or rather, I've played Pictionary, but not my somewhat-newly purchased box. Somehow, Sara and I won the game, despite me being unable to guess "Sea World", all the while shouting "Sea... planet! Sea... earth!". I felt a little slow. ;)
It sure was a fun day.

Exciting Morning

Well, I've had an exciting morning so far. On the bus on the way to work this morning, I got a call from a number I didn't recognize. Turns out it was my boss (or one of them, at least) calling to say that something was broken in the production website (the one that makes us money), and wanting to know if I'm near a computer, or my ETA to the office. The bus was only 10 minutes from work, so I passed my Starbucks after getting off the bus (what an effort of will that took) and rushed into the office. It only took me about 10 minutes to find and fix the problem, which turned out not to be anything related to my code after all. Phew.

Sealion War

Sealion War this year was pretty good. I say only "pretty good" as opposed to "awesome" because I was sneezing, and my nose was dripping, and my eyes were so itchy I wanted to carve them out of my head with a spoon. Apparently the field the event took place on was "hayed" on Friday night, so my alergies hit me like a Mack truck. Other than that, the event was awesome. I didn't shoot archery, unfortunatly, because my back was still a bit sore from last week. I went to the doctor on Thursday and had an hour long massage, which helped a lot, but I still wasn't feeling 100%. I have another appointment for this Thursday, and I'm still debating about whether to do archery on Tuesday.
Oh, I'm also sick.

Home Town Kids

I was just about to write something like "I can't believe something like this happened in my home town", but realized that it would be completely false. I absolutely DO believe something like this would happen there.
Handgun goes off on school bus

My Poor Back

Last Tuesday at archery I was silly, and forgot to stretch, both before and after. I did three royal rounds, scoring 49 (officially recorded), 50, and 49. The last two weren't officially recorded, because everyone left by then. It's getting frustrating, showing up as early as I possibly can, only to have everyone else leave nearly as soon as I get there, because they've somehow been there since 4:00 or 4:30 or something ridiculous.
Anyways, fast forward to Friday morning. I sit down at my desk, turn in my chair, and suddenly my upper back, between my shoulder blades, spasms like crazy, and I end up with two intensly painful knots of muscle on either side of my spine. Not at all pleasant. I ended up suffering though it until about noon, when I'd had enough and went home. Sara did a bit of massage on my back, and I spent the next couple hours in a nice hot bath after taking some muscle relaxants. Well, here I am, Tuesday, and my back is still sore. Guess I won't be going to archery tonight. I should probably so see a massage therapist about this, instead of just waiting for it to go away.