Month: August 2009

Since I’ve started to work in Burnaby a lot has changed in my daily routine. Some things have been noticeable right away, others have taken some time to pop up.

One of the things I’ve noticed is that I don’t eat McDonald’s food items any more. When we were downtown, we were next to a McD’s located in Waterfront Centre. Sometimes I buy lunch from there about once a week, though it would be closer to every other week. I would often buy snacks from McD’s. In the afternoon, I’d often buy a snack wrap, junior McChicken, or a bacon cheeseburger. It was convenient and cheap.

Now, I have no close by McD’s to go to. I’m usually stuck on-campus all day. On my way home, there’s no McD’s that’s conveniently along the commute. I do live by a Burger King but I refuse to eat BK products. On the weekends, I don’t actively go seeking McD food.

All that adds up to a change in my diet. I hope it’s for the better. The question is, did I replace McDonald’s with something better?

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Since receiving my new TV, I’ve been looking for sources of HD programming. The easiest to find on a daily basis are the late night TV talk shows. Because of time-shifting, I can watch each episode twice a night if need be.

One of the shows I’ve really been enjoying is The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. Conan promised he wouldn’t change his comedy or tone things down for the traditionally more conservative 11:30pm timeslot. He has kept his word. As a partial result, the ratings between his Tonight and Leno’s Tonight are different. Conan’s ratings are actually lower. If I were Conan, I take this as a compliment Leno’s audience doesn’t seem to get Conan, which to me, means good old Coco is doing alright.

One of the more interesting things Conan has done is his continuing bits with one of his associate producers, Jordan Schlansky. Schlansky is an interesting fellow who seems quite worldly, a perfect foil to Conan’s down-to-earth sensibilities. Whenever the two get on camera together, the results are quite hilarious.

The video you see above was taped when the show was still back in New York during the writers’ strike. If you click here, you’ll see a very popular video of Schlansky and Conan going out to dinner. Conan is at his best during the meal. Last but not least are the most current videos. At this time, it’s not known if Schlansky has found a place to live in LA. Conan is trying to help him find a new home and this documented in part one and part two. Funny stuff.

Because of my recent move into a new apartment plus a purchase of an HDTV, I had a need for a whole bunch of cabling and some related accessories. While I was fortunate that Telus supplied me with a lot of that, I found myself still short a few items.

My goal was to find the cheapest place for quality cables. The reason I wanted to find cheap cables is because there’s an incredible amount of pricing gouging that is currently going on with high definition related cables. It’s my belief that retailers are attempting to make consumers think that with higher definition images and higher quality images, come higher prices for those cables that bring them those images. The worst offenders by far are the folks at Monster Cable Products. The markups on their HDMI cables border on being criminal. In fact, most salespeople would rather you buy a single Monster cable than brand new TV because they would make more money off the cable.

The people I work with are a great resource for information because if I’m into something, the odds are they’re into it as well. It turns out they knew the best place for cables, home theatre accessories, and similar items. The place they recommended me is called Monoprice. They have a great web site that’s informative yet easy to navigate. They offer a wide selection of items, all for very reasonable prices.

I ordered from them a 6ft. HDMI cable, 30 ft. of network cable, and a digital optical switch. The subtotal for those items was about $13 USD. With shipping, it was just over $20 USD. Even with the exchange rate, that’s an awesome deal. Going to any local electronics store I would have been hard pressed to find an HDMI cable for $4. Monster sells the same cable for about 10x as much.

If you’re looking for A/V accessories, please do check out Monoprice.

So when I woke this morning I was feeling bad enough to decide it was time to take a sick day. Yesterday I wrote I didn’t remember when the last time I had a cold. Well, it would be even harder to remember when I took a sick day. The actual last time I remember staying home from work was during the 2006 Olympic Winter Games. I distinctly remember watching the women’s ice hockey gold medal game from my bed. Our women won that game if you forgot.

Anyways, after sending off a blurry e-mail to inform people that I would not be coming in, I fell back asleep. I didn’t intend to but I didn’t wake up until 12:30pm. I crawled out of bed, blew some mucus out of my nostrils, and made myself some lunch.

Feeling somewhat better, I decided I could make it to a UPS Store which is about half a block from my apartment building. I really wanted to ship out my busted Xbox 360 as early as possible. Since it was surprisingly sunny, I decided to wear shorts. I was in the direct sunlight for perhaps two minutes but by the time I entered the shade of the store, I was beginning to sweat like I’d been out in scorching sun for an hour. It wasn’t even that hot outside today. It was a sign that this cold was doing some weird things with my body temperature.

Getting my 360 shipped out was easy, so I returned to my apartment. I briefly thought about taking a nap but I watched Oprah instead while clearing my sinuses. As the afternoon turned into evening my sinuses are now less congested but a cough has taken its place.

I’m almost positive I’ll return to work tomorrow but I’ll be bringing a stupid cough with me.

I know my female readers love it when I refer to myself as “Daddy” so here goes. Daddy is sick! I don’t know how it happened but I managed to catch a cold sometime near the end of last week. I felt kinda chilly throughout most of Thursday but by Saturday it was full-blown cold. The cold has so far manifested itself as a really stuffy nose. My body’s new primary function appears to be making mucus and phlegm. I also have a bit of a productive cough. If things go as history has shown, my stuffy nose will clear up but my cough will get worse and linger for weeks afterwards. I can’t remember the last time I had a cold but the seemingly long stretch in between them gives me no comfort right now.

I woke up feeling pretty crappy this morning and flirted with not going to work. I perhaps stupidly soldiered on and went to work anyways. I wasn’t feeling great until about lunch time when it got a bit better. Maybe the salisbury steak helped. Now that I’m home, I don’t feel like my symptoms have improved. I have also noticed a weird thing. I’m drinking lots and lots of fluids but I haven’t really had to pee more often. Since I’m not a doctor nor do I play one on TV, I’m going to speculate my body is using the extra amounts of fluids to produce extra amounts of snot, mucus, and phlegm.

Ok, I’m going to bed now.

In late 2006 I managed to win an Xbox 360 Pro console in a Pepsi contest. Thanks to a certain Gwilli for letting me know about the contest. When I received my Xbox it was nearly 2007 and I was painfully behind the times in terms of console gaming.

At the time, I was working on a “next-gen” game (I guess we call it current-gen now), yet I didn’t own a next-gen console and I didn’t know anything about high-definition standards. I couldn’t have told you what 480i or 480p meant, though I was pretty sure 1080 was better than 480. Anyways, because I got that 360, I was able to learn what modern console gaming was all about. It certainly made me a more knowledgeable person at work.

My 360 was manufactured in September of 2006, making it one of the original designs for the 360, also known as the Xenon design. As the years went by, there were numerous reports of 360s failing in high numbers. I personally know many people who had their 360s fail. Finally, Microsoft acknowledged there was indeed a problem. Despite all of this and despite the fact I had a 360 design that was most prone to failure, I played on and on. I would play hours at a time, afternoons would blend into evenings, yet my faithful 360 churned on, not a blip or hiccup to be heard or seen.

So much time had passed that I thought that I might have lucked out. I might have one of those rare launch consoles that was ok. Just to be safe, I rarely moved it from where it sat. Most of the time, it was on a small end table next to my desk, in its vertical position.

When I moved to my new apartment, my 360 went not in my bedroom but into my living room. I put in on a bookcase shelf basically by itself with plenty of room around it. Now in a previous post, you might have seen my 360 on the fireplace mantle. That’s where I had it temporarily until I got my new TV. Once my TV got delivered, my 360 went back on the shelf.

This weekend, I finally got around to adjusting my TV settings to something that could pass as calibrated. This meant, the picture would look much better than what I had been seeing in the break-in period. First, I tested my Blu-rays which looked great after calibration. Then it was time for the actual HD TV channels. Last but not least, it was time for my 360.

When I turned on my 360 it actually turned on fine. When I got to the dashboard, I decided to put in a game, that’s when things went wrong. The game didn’t load and my Xbox appeared to freeze. Undeterred, I turned it off and then turned it back on. This is when I really knew something was wrong. Instead of powering up like normal, I got the infamous three red rings. This was an indication of a serious hardware error. In my case, it was indicating an overheating problem which was interesting since the console had been off for several weeks beforehand.

I turned it on and off over the course of several minutes but each time it would not start up. A few times it would not get the three red rings and instead just freeze. Realizing that this was not a recoverable error, I gave up. I then went to the Xbox web site to start the repair process. Within minutes, I had a pre-paid UPS label sent to my e-mail. It’s good for ten days.

I’ll have to ship my broken Xbox to Don Mills in Ontario, of all places. Microsoft will likely not repair my console but instead give me a refurbished one. I’m hoping that the one I get back will have HDMI since my didn’t.

Well, it was a good run. I have no stats to back this up but I’m thinking I had one of the more resilient original Xbox 360s out there. Nearly three years before it decided to break.

I have decided to use my webcam again to amuse myself. This partly came about because a friend of mine told me he was using his netbook and a webcam for security purposes. I thought that was a good idea since I now own a place and I also have the necessary equipment around.

I first tried this about seven years ago when I lived at SJC. I didn’t have anything interesting to point my webcam towards back then. To be honest, I’m not sure how interesting it will be now.

Just to let you know, the software I’m using is free and as such, it can be a bit wonky. It may not connect to the cam properly. Also, depending on when you’re reading this, the webcam might not be up. For example, if you’re reading this from the archives and it’s 2012 and the zombie apocalypse has started, the webcam probably isn’t up (and how to do you have a connection after Z-Day?).

My webcam comes into two flavours: streaming and updating web page. The streaming looks the best but unfortunately times out for some reason quite quickly. If you reload the page it will start again. The updating web page sends you a new image every two seconds, not as good looking as streaming but it’s more reliable. Have a look:

Streaming

Updating web page

So there’s probably a few of you who have already experienced what I’m about to describe. For me, this is the first time it’s happened, so bear with me.

As some of you know, my first name is Erwin. Actually, who among you read this blog and didn’t know my name was Erwin. Anyways, a few weeks ago I’m sitting at my desk at work and my manager comes to me.

“Hey, we just hired a temp FE artist and I think his name is Erwin! Yeah really! Now there’s two of you.”

I kinda just nodded because I didn’t even know we were hiring additional staff. Given the unpleasantness that happened in January, I was surprised we had enough money on hand to get more people. Also, my manager didn’t seem exactly sure what this guy’s actual name was.

Fast-forward to today when the entire team gets a new e-mail announcing two new hires. One was a co-op that we’d worked with before and the second was, you guessed it, the new temp FE artist. What pray tell is the actual name of the artist? It’s Irwan. Yes, it’s spelled completely different than my name but let’s be honest, just pronounce it. For a while there, I was hoping he preferred it as Ir-WAN as in LAN (SJC Call of Duty represent!) and WAN but that was just wishful thinking. In all likelihood, it’s pronounced just like my name.

So now there are two of us (sorta) on the team, just like a Jon and John combo, a Jimmy and Gymmy if you will. I made that last one up. I can’t even remember the last time I met another Erwin (or close to it). For all my life, if anyone yelled out “Erwin” I didn’t even need to think if that might be directed to another person. I was the one they were yelling at. Now at work, I’ll have to think twice, for the first time ever.

I’ve always thought my name was unique but I have a new appreciation for it now. Having a unique first name does have some advantages (and disadvantages too). I never really thought about how life is if your name is Bob or Steve. What’s it like having the same first name as five other guys in a group of ten guys?

I hope I come to enjoy having another namesake (sorta) on the team.

This evening I was watching part three of the Back to the Future trilogy on DVD. In the process of the viewing, I lost track of time and forgot that I do some ironing before bedtime. Is that a valid example of irony?

My parents bought me a watch as a gift a little more than a year ago. It was a Citizen Eco-Drive model. It’s a nice watch but the plastic strap broke last week. I tried holding it together with some tape but it’s not working very well. I took it to various stores but each and everyone told me the strap is not standard and that they’d have to contact Toronto to even get a quote for a replacement. One guy said it be $35-$45 as a ballpark figure. That’s a lot of money for a plastic strap.

In the meantime, since I need to have a watch on my wrist (it’s a personal thing), I looked around for a replacement. About two years ago, my friend Ron got me a fake Rolex when he was in China. It kinda looked a bit too flashy for me so that’s why I never really wore it. Well, push came to shove this week so I’ve been wearing it all weekend. It’s kinda growing on me. Here’s a picture of what it exactly looks like. What do you think?