Month: October 2016

Almost two years ago I somewhat painfully removed myself from getting Internet access from one of two big players here in this province. In British Columbia, most people are either with Telus or Shaw. Both companies charge exorbitant prices for access compare to other Western nations. I moved to an independent ISP, thereby cutting my monthly costs by more than half. Beyond the initial installation problems I’ve been quite happy with my service.

About a year ago though, the municipality that I live in announced they were building out their own fibre optic network to connect businesses and homes. The city would own the network but lease portions of the network to ISPs to provide access to the Internet. In other cities, the fibre network is built by the ISPs but only the big ones have the capital and resources to do that. It’s also the big ISPs that then charge you big bucks for access. In my city, because the city owns the network, independent ISPs have the ability to move in and offer their services.

In about two months, four different ISPs will be offering Internet access to residents and businesses through this new fibre network. For my apartment building, residents will have two different ISPs to choose from. The first company, Novus, has already released their pricing: 25 Mbps Internet for $30 per month, HDTV and Internet for $45 per month, and HDTV, Internet, and home phone for $55 per month. I currently pay about $30 a month as well but for only 6 Mbps speeds. I would more than quadruple my speed at the same cost. As you might imagine this is extremely attractive to me as an option. The one wrinkle is that Novus has indicated that 15% of the building needs to at least show interest in signing up, as I guess anything less doesn’t make financial sense to them.

The other ISP hasn’t made their pricing plans available yet. I’m not sure if they’ll be able to do better. I feel bad for my current ISP. They’ve been great and really support their independent business. It would be difficult not to switch though. Who wouldn’t want a 4x increase in speed at the same price? Also, access would now be on a brand new fibre optic network. No more modems for anyone in this building anymore.

Novus is holding info sessions at the end of this month in the lobby. I’ll know more then.

If you live in the greater Vancouver area you might have noticed a series of storm and wind warnings that began popping up at the beginning of the week. It warned residents of the area that starting Wednesday, we would be deluged by torrential rains and possibly strong winds. All of this being caused by a series of three storms, the last of which would hit by Saturday.

On Wednesday I was prepared for the worst. I woke up that morning and looked outside. The ground was wet for sure but I wasn’t even sure if it was raining. Nevertheless I brought my umbrella with me on my commute. On the short walk from the bus stop to the studio I didn’t even need my umbrella. It wasn’t even raining. That whole day had a few showers but it was far from the strong storms we were warned about. On my way home the skies were actually clear.

It was the same thing today. I didn’t need my umbrella at all. It was even nice enough outside that I was able to go on a short walk around the studio with a coffee in hand. The weather warnings are still in effect for tomorrow and probably into Saturday but I feel the intensity of the “storm” has not matched what was in the warnings.

Perhaps tomorrow it will rain enough that I will need to open my umbrella for the first time this week.

There are a lot of late night talk shows and comedians covering the US presidential debates but I’m particularly fond of the work Seth Meyers is doing. The above clip shows his coverage of the second debate.

I made mention of it briefly in this post but the cafeteria at work shut down in May of this year for a complete renovation. I hadn’t even returned to work at that time but when I returned in June, the cafeteria was closed off and work had “begun”.

Our facilities people outlined that the work would take about four months to complete and that the new cafeteria would open at the end of the summer. Food services became limited. What amounted to a small area that was originally like a coffee shop became the temporary cafeteria. Menu items became limited and virtually every item that was previously prepared fresh was either unavailable or became prepackaged.

During the summer, a friend and I would walk past the shut down cafeteria from the outside. We’d look through the massive windows to see how work was proceeding. At first, things seem to be going at a normal pace. Stuff was being torn out and drywall was removed. Things got interesting when the cafeteria got to be just an empty shell. All the seating had been removed, equipment taken out, carpets ripped out, and so forth. At this point, progress, at least visually, appeared to have just stopped. My memory is a bit hazy but it seemed like it was about late June or early July in the timeline. My friend and I also noticed on our daily walk that none of the construction workers were there after 2pm. The work site was quiet and we couldn’t see anyone doing any construction work.

This continued for weeks and weeks on end. We’d walk by and see no noticeable difference in the renovation. It just sat there as an empty shell. Weeks became months. We began to wonder what exactly was being done every day and what the company was paying for. About two weeks ago, the internal company blog finally got updated with some cafeteria renovation news. They admitted the construction was behind schedule due to “curveballs” that got thrown in the way. What these were was not elaborated on. I wonder what these “curveballs” were. The building itself is sixteen years old, not ancient by any means. The plans for the original cafeteria most likely still exist. It’s not like they tore down a wall and then discovered a natural gas deposit. What could have been so surprising?

The update did try to spin some good news. Apparently October would be a big month, with each week of the month having a major installation of either equipment or fixtures. Unfortunately, I just walked past the work site today and I didn’t see any evidence of major progress at all.

The latest update targeted the new cafeteria opening in late October or early November. I think that’s a completely unrealistic goal. Based on what I saw today and from not knowing any of the construction details, I would guess everything won’t be ready until January of 2017 at the earliest. I pulled that date straight outta my ass but I feel pretty confident about it.

To put into context how long this “four month” renovation has now taken, consider the following. There have been co-op students who started their work term in May and left at the end of August without having a proper meal in a real cafeteria. There are regular full-time employees who started in May or later and have never seen a regular lunch service with all the menu offerings.

Obviously I’m not paying for these renovations but just on principle, I hope the company hasn’t blown the budget on this. I also worry about the people who are overseeing this multi-million dollar project. Corporate HQ in California approved the money for this but you have to wonder if they’ve inquired as to why it’s taking so long for this to get done at one of their flagship studios.

In mid-August I wrote a post about wagering an online bet that Donald Trump would win the US presidential election. It was a hedge against one of the worst possible outcomes for humanity.

Two months have passed since that post. Bodog’s odds for the presidential race have virtually been unchanged since then. Nate Silver’s forecast actually had Clinton up four additional points back then compared to now (even despite this weekend’s gong show).

Despite of all this, I’m now having a hard time convincing myself that this bet would have any chance of winning. Yes, I understand that Nate Silver is literally saying I have about a 17% chance of winning it. On the other hand, the Trump campaign seems in terrible shape right now. Romney was doing much better at this time back in 2012 and he still got his ass kicked. How could Trump do any better than that?

At the same time though, there is a tiny voice in my head that reminds me not to underestimate the collective stupidity of American voters. These are the same people who installed George W. Bush in the White House for eight horrendous years. So despite all the polling and all the doom and gloom analysis from all the political pundits, I feel the American people can never be ruled out. It’s so possible for them to snatch disaster from the jaws of sensibility. Let us not dismiss the voting power of the racist, the bigoted, the uneducated, and the uninformed. They could change the history of human civilization.

The question of where on the betting slip that $100 should go still goes unanswered.

It’s Thanksgiving long weekend here in Canada so I’ve given the staff at et.com the extra day off. We’ll return tomorrow with our regular programming. In the meantime, feel free to watch the cold open from this weekend’s SNL.

Tomorrow is the last day of work before the Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. I am thankful for the extra day off.

I’ve been super tired all week. The weather has also not helped. It’s been raining for most of the week. When I left work this evening I was greeted by a torrential downpour.

I’ve also been trying to dodge whatever illness seems to be going around at work. Multiple people were out sick this week because of some plague. I have, so far, been able to avoid it. Of course, now that I’ve mentioned it I will probably catch it.

Just one more day to get through at work.

With the new NHL regular season coming up I recently had an idea pop up in my head. What if you picked one team that you thought would be terrible all season and bet that they would lose for every single game? Say for every one of their 82 games you bet $10 the other team would win. How would you do?

I’m striving for simplicity in this venture which explains the parts of my idea. Sticking with one team, always betting to lose, and always betting $10 removes any additional effort. It’s like when you just dump money into a mutual fund and don’t think about it. You leave it to the fund manager to reallocate the fund’s resources as required.

Let’s take last season’s results as example. The Toronto Maple Leafs were the worst team in the league with a record of 29 wins, 42 losses, and 11 OT/shootout losses. Assuming that OT/shootout losses count as a regular loss, you’d win 53 out of 82 bets. At first glance, that seems pretty good. The issue is you’d lose 29 bets and be out $290 from those bets. From the 53 times that you did win, would your earnings be at least $290? That’s difficult to tell because the odds for every game are different. Also, when you’re betting on a loser to lose, the bookies usually don’t give you great odds. If I had to guess, betting on the favourite would net you about $6-7 every time on a $10 wager. In that case, you could recoup the lost $290 and profit about $100 over the course of a season. Perhaps a lot of work for just $100.

Hard to say if I’d go through with this. A friend says I should track this with a spreadsheet for the first couple months of the season to see what my theoretical results would be. Maybe that’s the safer bet.

I have a friend at work who seems to be constantly getting packages delivered to the studio. I think everyone who works there does the same thing as getting stuff delivered to the mail room is way more convenient than delivery services leaving that stupid card at your home when you’re away during the day.

Anyways, I believe in the last two months or so my friend has received at least six different packages from Amazon. How do I know this? We take a (nearly) daily walk together in the afternoon. I’ll go get a coffee and if he’s got a package to pick up, we’ll stop by the mail room. The stuff he’s purchasing isn’t expensive or anything, for example he bought laundry detergent using Amazon. I am, however, feeling a bit of envy that he gets a treat in the mail. It’s all psychological I believe. Who doesn’t love getting packages in the mail?

I even mentioned this to my friend today as we went to pick up some t-shirts that he had ordered online. I even proposed that I might just order cheap crap just to get something delivered to me. Perhaps I need 150 silver twist-ties in my kitchen.

The weather forecast calls for steady rain all day tomorrow. The high will be only 13 degrees as well. In light of this, I think it’s time I break out the rain gear for the season. I haven’t worn my North Face jacket in months, probably since early May. It’s time though as I can feel the chill in the air now.

In other news, I drank a whole can of cherry Coke Zero at dinner time. Probably not a smart thing to do. Oh well, I should take a sleeping pill before going to bed.