Month: November 2015

For the last three weeks or so it’s been extremely difficult to get my car out of or into the parking garage in my building. The fob that opens that gate was acting up but I wasn’t sure if it just needed a new battery. When I pressed the button, the LED on the fob still lit up so I thought it might just be broken.

I got myself into two particular situations where I probably should have just went out and replaced the battery. The first was when I wanted to go somewhere and I got to the gate exit. I kept hammering on the button on the fob, the LED lights up but gate stays closed. I rolled down my window, stuck the fob outside, hoping it would send a clearer signal but no dice. I must have sat there for at least two minutes by myself. Finally, another vehicle that was leaving pulled right behind me. They probably waited about thirty seconds, wondering what the hell I was doing. They could see the fob in my hand, stuck outside the window as I was pressing on it madly. They figured it out and they mercifully used their own fob to let me out.

Now while getting out was great, I immediately thought that I wouldn’t be able to get back in. Once I was done my errand, I was just hoping that another car would be leaving and I could slip in while the gate was opening for them. I believe this is how criminals get into buildings. Anyways, as arrived home, luck was not on my side. I stopped at the gate and again hammered on the fob. Nothing happened. It was useless, I would have to wait for someone coming out or someone coming back just like me.

Sadly, none of those things for quite a while so I just had my car idling on street with my left blinker on. Luckily the street is wide enough that other cars could go around me on my right. It was five minutes before the lights of another car appeared from behind the gate as someone was leaving. Five minutes doesn’t seem that long but trust me it is, especially when you’re waiting in traffic to turn left into a parking garage you can’t get into. As the gate opened, I drove back in, silently thanking the person who was leaving.

That was about three weeks ago and that was also the last time I drove until today, when I got the battery replaced in my fob. Everything now works fine. I’m an idiot for procrastinating that long.

It’s currently raining in Vancouver, which probably doesn’t sound too out of the ordinary but I’m probably understating it a bit. The rains were torrential and heavy for most of the evening. I looked outside in the late afternoon and the deluge was impressive.

I actually was planning on leaving work at 6pm but my usual ride home said he’d probably have to stay until at least 8pm. So I had to make a decision, leave at 6pm and get drenched on my way to the bus stop or stay later and stay dry. Staying later also meant I’d get dinner too. I took the lazy option and stayed later. A warm meal and dry clothes won out in the end.

On our way home the rain was a steady deluge and some streets were like small streams. A huge flooded portion of the road awaited us at the bottom of the hill. We inadvertently splashed some city workers trying to unblock the drains. What a miserable night to have to work outside. Thanks to my friend, I got home relatively dry and warm.

It took until this week before the weather felt cold to me. Not bad I suppose. Throughout September and October it was quite mild and I thought a jacket was still optional for those months. That changed this week when I was actually glad I had a jacket on.

Of course, when I say it feels like cold, that means it’s cold for Vancouver. The temperatures are still above freezing but have now dropped to the single digits. I might even pull out my winter coat for the first time for this fall.

Well, it’s just gonna get worse from here on in. The weather is gonna suck until about late April.

Tomorrow is Remembrance Day, a statutory holiday in this province. While normally I would have the day off, management at work has requested it be a normal working day with the stipulation that we would get another day off in lieu of. It was also stated that if people wanted to participate in Remembrance Day ceremonies, they could.

While there is no doubt I was looking forward to having the day off, I understand the project is at a critical stage so I get why we need to come in. On the other hand, since I’m on a fixed contract, I made sure to ask my boss that I’d be getting that day off well before the end of my contract. There’s no use in promising me the day off next summer if I won’t even be around for that. My boss is a cool dude though and he understood I wouldn’t be working for free. I’ll probably take the day off in December.

Anyways, working on a stat holiday is interesting because no other teams will be at the studio, including food services. As such, management is getting a catered lunch for us, which is nice of them to do. At least we will be well fed.

So enjoy your day off tomorrow people!

I napped on both days of the weekend, which is a lot of napping for me. I’m not sure if that was an indication of how tired I was from the work week. Whatever it was, it might explain why I woke up almost two hours before my alarm was supposed to go off this morning.

I tried going back to sleep but it was a lost cause. I just surfed on my tablet, taking in the morning news and looking at pictures of kittens. Despite being awake so early, I was determined not to be just as late as I usually am for work. Knowing my tardy self, there was a real danger of just wasting the whole two hours of extra time. I managed to arrive at work fifteen minutes early than usual, so at least it was not a total loss.

Of course, you don’t lose two hours of sleep without consequence so when the afternoon rolled around, I was very tired. It was nothing that two shots of espresso couldn’t handle though. I still love naps though.

Are you aware that Nordstrom has opened up a location in Vancouver? If you’re on social media, this is something you probably know already. A few weeks after the store opened I went to check it out. It’s definitely a high-end retailer. The store is well-appointed and you can easily tell it caters to those who have a lot of money to spend. After looking at a few price tags, I felt out of place there. The one thing that I did enjoy seeing though was at the men’s shoes department.

Nordstrom Vancouver has a shoe shine service. The practice of having your shoes shined by someone seems to have fallen by the wayside. From movies and TV shows of the 40s and 50s, it appears that it was much more common back then. Before seeing the service at Nordstrom, the only time I’ve seen the service offered was at the airport.

Anyways, I recently bought a pair of leather shoes and I treat my shoes very poorly. I buy relatively cheap dress shoes for less than $100 a pair. I never get them cleaned or put on any of that stuff that is supposed to make them last. I decided maybe I should see if taking care of them will improve their durability.

On Saturday, I had to meet a friend for a quick meet up downtown. After we were done, I headed to Nordstrom to get my new dress shoes shined. There were two shoe shine dudes working that day. One of them was already busy with a customer, so I got the remaining dude. He was super friendly and offered to charge my phone while my shoes were shined. I declined but it was nice knowing you can get a bit of juice while you wait.

I was actually quite excited to get my shoes shined because it felt like I was going back in time and doing something from a bygone era. My dude was quick and efficient with the shine. First, he took a cloth and cleaned off the dirt from my shoes. It was wet and terrible outside, so there was probably bit of water and mud on them. I’m probably forgetting a few steps but I believe he added a conditioner to my shoes next. That helps the shoe leather last longer. He even applied a sole and heel dressing. That’s a nice touch that I wasn’t sure if they were going to do. Finally, he applied the polish and then buffed the shoes to a nice shine.

The cost of the shine was $2.50 which is a fantastic price. I tipped my dude just because he was so friendly. I only have one small suggestion. I get that for $2.50 I shouldn’t expect the royal treatment but he went quite fast and I would have preferred a little more time and TLC spent on all parts of my shoes. Overall though, it was a very pleasant experience and I definitely recommend taking care of your shoes this way.

When I went back outside, I noticed any water that got on my shoes was beading up. That meant that the water wasn’t being absorbed into the leather and my shoes were already benefiting from the shine.

Do you remember Jim Bakker of Tammy Faye fame? When I was kid the disgraced televangelist was going through his scandals. He bilked millions of dollars from his followers and he went to prison for that. The media forgot about him after that happened. I didn’t realize he was paroled early and continued doing what he did best, taking money from fools who would listen to him. Turning back to televangelism, he started this odd focus on survivalism as well. Bakker actually sells his own brand of survival food on his show.

Now some of you might remember I bought some emergency rations as part of my prep for an extended disaster zombie apocalypse situation. As such, I’m interested in how good these Bakker’s survival food might be. Well, the folks at Gawker Media decided to get chef Greg Lauro to prepare and then sample a variety of Bakker’s foods. The video above documents the whole process. I hope I won’t spoil the video for you when I say, if you’re having to subsist on Jim Bakker’s buckets of emergency food during the apocalypse, you might want to just let the zombies eat you.

I don’t really consider myself a prolific prankster. While I pride myself on having a sharp sense of humour, pranks aren’t my thing. I partake once in a rare while and only if the circumstances are right. Well, about a week ago, I was going to the dollar store downstairs to get cheap whatever. I entered the store and then heard the squeak of a rat come at me from one of the displays. I stopped, turned around, and went to see where it was coming from. It originated from a display of Halloween toys and decorations. There were some small plastic rats and crows on sale. They had motion sensors in them and if they detected movement, they’d squeak or caw respectively. With batteries included, they were only $1.25 each. What a steal!

I bought both a rat and a crow and brought them into work the next day. I immediately proceeded to annoy the hell out of my co-workers around me as I placed them in various spots near their desks. One of my co-workers took the rat and placed in a box to stop it from making noise. I eventually took back the crow and wondered what I should do with it.

Then I remembered our production coordinator, whom I’ll call Tiffany for the purposes of this post, was away overseas at a wedding all week and wouldn’t come back until Monday. Late on Friday, I went to her unoccupied desk and gently placed the crow underneath her desk but on top of a small file cabinet. It was at the perfect height and tucked back far enough that it would only detect the motion of her sitting down or getting up from her desk. Then I went off to enjoy my weekend.

On Monday, I didn’t even bother checking in with Tiffany until late in the day. I sent her an IM just saying “caw! caw! caw!”. I thought she’d understand that meant it was me who placed the crow. In my mind, I had expected her to trigger the crow once or maybe twice before discovering where the noise was coming from. She replied to my IM with a confused face emoticon. I replied with, “you can keep the bird” and left it at that. Surely, she knew what I was talking about.

Fast forward to late today, the Tuesday, almost two full days after her return to work. Tiffany saw me near my desk and came up all in face. “It was you!” was her greeting to me. She then proceeded to tell me she had heard the crow for since Monday morning and couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. She’d asked the people around her desk to turn down their TVs because she thought it was coming from our game or some other game. Of course, no one knew what she was talking about. I found this immensely amusing but felt somewhat bad. I offered to walk to her desk and show Tiffany where the crow was. On the way over, Tiffany explained to me the hardships she had suffered listening to that damn crow. Damn, that was funny. Once at her desk, I sat down, just to hear what she was hearing. I gotta admit, because it was muffled under her desk, you really couldn’t tell where it coming from. Anyways, I grabbed the crow and gave it to her.

To Tiffany’s credit, she took it from me and I’m pretty sure she walked down a floor and installed it on her friend’s desk, thus continuing the prank. It’s always a dangerous game to annoy a production coordinator because they’re in charge of food for the team. She could take a dump in my food next time!

Before the summer started I really enjoyed getting salads for lunch at the company cafeteria. Yes, a salad will never truly taste better than let’s say poutine but at least they made it a viable alternative. Then sometime during the summer, they replaced the person or persons working at the salad station. They had this new lady making the salads. I could tell she was new. Now I understand that when people are still learning they will make mistakes. You learn from your mistakes and you get better at what you are doing. So, initially I was patient with her when she forgot key ingredients in my salad like the chopped egg, the goat cheese, or the candied walnuts, stuff like that. I even over looked this annoying habit she had of leaning over my plate while preparing my salad to get at the ingredients. While she did this, her sleeve or other parts of her clothing would make contact with my food. I mean really, I was being more than patient.

In general, her salads really weren’t that good compared to the other people who made them before she started working. It’s hard to describe, they just tasted quite meh. After two months of her working the salad station, there were no signs of improvement. She still forgot ingredients and she’d still touch my food with her clothing. I had enough of that, so I stopped getting salads for lunch. If I didn’t like the main entrée selection, I’d go get a sandwich made instead. Speaking of sandwiches, there’s this one lady at the sandwich bar who is so good at her job. She’s quick and efficient and always constructs your sandwich to your exact specifications. Whenever she’s making my sandwich, I know I’m in good hands and that my lunch will be a good one on that particular day.

So where was I? Oh yeah, so if you read my previous post, I ate terribly on the weekend. When lunch time rolled around today, I decided to bite the bullet and get a salad for lunch, even if the salad lady was going to probably screw up my salad. I probably should have bailed when I noticed she was a bit flustered as she was preparing the orders of the people ahead of me in line. Yet, like a fool, I soldiered on. The feature today was a Cobb salad and when I ordered, I asked that they replace the blue cheese with goat cheese, something I’ve done in the past with no problem. By this time, the line behind me was massive because she was a bit slower today than usual in making all the orders. I patiently waited for my salad construction to be finished as more and more people lined up. When she was finally done, she handed me my plate and I looked down and there was the blue cheese which I didn’t want. I took a quick look at the long line and then looked my salad once more and I realized it wasn’t worth it.

I went back to my desk and picked off all the blue cheese from the rest of salad. I ate my lunch with quiet resentment. I really want salad lady to get better at her job but it’s clear to me that probably won’t be possible. I also really want to eat healthy for lunch but if crappy salads are what I’m going to get, then that makes it very difficult. It seems like fate that the people who make poutine, burgers, chicken strips, and fries at the cafeteria never ever screw up. Is that a sign?