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There are some drawbacks about being a temporary full-time employee like I am right now. For example, I don’t get the full range of benefits like RFT employees do, including stock awards, which I would love given how high EA’s stock is currently. There is one advantage of being a TFT employee though and that is I don’t have to do performance reviews. Even Conan O’Brien has to do them at his show, as shown above.

Almost a decade after it debuted, I now finally own a Playstation 3 console. If this was 2006, I’d be the envy of a lot of people when I put my PS3 next to my Xbox 360 on the shelf. Since this is 2015 though, I’m sure more than a few people are assuming I’m still jobless.

I acquired the 160 Gb Slim version of the PS3 through the Best Buy Canada employee auction web site. They give access to regular people if you’re part of their Reward Zone club, which costs nothing to be a part of. This site sells off, eBay style, items that might be slightly damaged or cosmetically imperfect. Some items are in perfect condition, while others can be missing parts, manuals, cables, and the like. The status of any item is clearly stated in the auction description.

The auction ended at 5:30pm today, while I was still at work. About a minute and a half before the auction ended, I jumped in with my bid. Unlike eBay, each time you bid, you bid the maximum amount you’re willing to pay and system bids for you. My limit was $70 before tax and shipping. To my delight, when my bid went through, it only bumped up the high bid a dollar to $42 and I was the high bidder! For about 45 seconds it stayed at $42 as I refreshed the page. I was very pleased at this point but then with 30 seconds to go, there was a flurry of bids. When it was all over, someone had pushed the high bid up to $68, just two dollars away from my limit. Those idiots cost me an extra $24. I wonder if anyone got angry they were just $3 from taking the PS3 from me. After taxes and shipping got added the total came to $92.

I’ve watched PS3 ads on Craigslist for months and the $92 price is fairly good. This particular unit has a few cosmetic scratches but has been tested as functional. It is missing some rubber feet but I think I can live with that. If it bothers me that much, I can go to the dollar store downstairs and buy some of my own to replace them. It also doesn’t come with a PS3 controller, which might be the worst thing about this deal. Fortunately, I’ve already had a few people offer to lend one of their controllers. One benefit of this sale is that it comes with a 14-day money back warranty, which a Craigslist deal might not have.

Now that I have a PS3 console, I’m looking forward to catching up on all the PS3 exclusives that I’ve never played before: Metal Gear Solid, Uncharted series, The Last of Us, just to name a few. It will also replace my standalone Blu-ray player which I can sell and perhaps recoup some of the cost as well.

I can’t wait to party like it’s 2006!

Do you have a washing machine in your home? If so, this post will be most likely very relevant to you. Last week, I attended the AGM of the strata council for my building as I wrote in a previous post. There was nothing too exciting in this year’s meeting except that council strongly suggested every owner replace their washing machine hoses at their earliest convenience. My building is now around five years old and the developer used rubber hoses when they first installed all the washing machines. I have now learned that rubber hoses used with washing machines are prone to breakage after the five-year mark. At such time, the rubber become brittle and can burst at any time. The owners were told of an incident in the building where a rubber hose broke and water flooded the unit and several units below them. Costly repairs had to be made, insurance had to be involved, and it was pain in the ass for everyone involved.

Strata council has suggested that owners replace the rubber hoses with braided stainless steel ones, which are much less prone to breakage. I openly question why the developer, the Degelder Group, didn’t just use stainless steel hoses in the first place. Actually, I can probably answer that myself. The stainless steel hoses cost just a tiny bit more than the rubber ones but I can tell you, if there’s a corner to be cut or a penny to be saved, Degelder will do so without hesitation. I like my apartment and I don’t regret buying it but I can assure you Degelder tried to build this whole place doing it as cheap as it could.

So anyways, I’ve been told that replacing the hoses will cost about $150 or so. I know that it can be done by yourself but I don’t take any chances when it comes to plumbing. I’d rather get ripped off slightly but know I won’t have flooded my own home because I wanted to save a few bucks. This is where I suggest you look to replace the hoses in your own home as well. If they’re made of rubber and you’ve had them for more than five years, don’t delay in getting this looked at. In the meantime, you can allay your fears by turning off the water supply to the washing machine between uses. This practice is actually recommended by most washing machine manufacturers but hardly anyone does it. There should be two valves, one for hot and one for cold, which you turn off. If you’re going to be away from your home for any length of time, you should do this no matter what type of hoses you have.

Out of all the stupid advice I’ve doled out on this blog, consider this one of the most important ones!

This morning I bought tickets to see Norm MacDonald live when he comes to Vancouver on September 12. Norm is one of my favourite comedians and also a good Canadian. I believe he performed in Vancouver in 2011 but I was not able to attend. Most people go to music concerts but I’m way more interested in seeing stand-up comedians live. Over the years, I’ve seen Ellen Degeneres, Adam Sandler, Conan O’Brien, and Jerry Seinfeld (twice) perform. Having said that, I’m terrible at finding out when comedians will be in town for a show. Last year Seth Meyers did one show on a Saturday. I didn’t find out until well after all the seats were sold out. I was pretty sad about that. Seth Meyers is one of my favourite comedians, mostly because of his awesome work at the Weekend Update desk on SNL. Anyways, until I can figure out another way to see Seth again, I’ll have to settle for another former Weekend Update anchor, that being Norm MacDonald.

Norm’s comedy is an acquired taste in my opinion. He is extremely talented and a comedy genius. You might not think so if you just casually took in his work but there’s another layer there for you to discover. Anyways, the above video is from one of his great appearances on Conan O’Brien’s show, one of nine episodes he hosted on The Tonight Show.

I am totally late to the Keith Apicary party but I think he deserves any and all recognition. Apicary is a creation of comedian, actor, and dancer Nathan Barnatt. Barnatt’s characters has appeared on television and YouTube, and he was even scheduled to be a dancer on Michael Jackson’s tour before MJ’s untimely death.

While Barnatt conjured up several entertaining characters, his alter-ego as Keith Apicary is probably the most famous and the one I like the most. Keith is a bit of a simpleton, has a clear love of video games, and is a surprisingly good dancer. He’s shown up at various gaming conventions like E3 but he received the most exposure from the above video. In 2012, Barnatt showed up unannounced and in character for an audition as a dancer in a Kimberly Cole music video. He looked completely out-of-place until his slick moves shocked everyone there. He was asked if he had any formal dance training but he denied having such training, attributing his skill to video games. Interestingly, the audition video featuring Apicary actually has more views than the official music video that was eventually made.

If you like to see more of Keith, I recommend this video, where he called out Dolph Ziggler of the WWE. Capri Suns for everyone!

This evening I attended the annual general meeting for my building’s strata council. As some of you might know, such meetings can be very long, drawn-out, and boring affairs. We voted on three items and there was very little discussion throughout the meeting. There was a budget amendment that took the most time to sort out but there was very little debate about it. All of the issue were not very controversial at all. The election of the new strata council also took very little time as basically every candidate was elected by acclamation.

All told, the whole thing took perhaps an hour and twenty minutes to complete. To give you some perspective, in previous, more contentious years, such meetings have lasted well over two and a half hours, sometimes bordering on three hours. I am sure we will return to longer meetings in the future as the building gets older and more things have to be repaired.

I still have several hundreds shares in the company that I currently work for. These are the remnants of all the partially vested stock awards I received throughout the years. The vesting periods were all cut short due to various layoffs I suffered. Yet the remaining amount of shares are still substantial.

EA’s stock has been doing incredibly well since mid-October of 2014. As some of you might remember, as stock began to rise, some of my shares became valuable again. I sold all my ESPP shares that were essentially worthless at the point where I was able to break even. As I reveled in the joy of getting my money back, even Steven, the stock continued to climb. It’s now at around $64 a share, coming close to the historical high of $68, where it was sometime in 2005.

My strategy with these shares was to hold onto them until the day I really needed the money. Since I’ve never needed to liquidate that much of my assets, the shares remained in my portfolio. Current events, however, are making me re-think my strategy, even without a real need for this cash. First, the stock price, like I mentioned previously, is trending higher and higher. It’s been like this for a few quarters now. Wall Street is really liking what EA’s financials look like. If this continues and there is no apparent reason why it wouldn’t, it’s possible that the stock price could eclipse the all-time high of $68.

The second compelling reason to sell now or very soon, is the value of the US dollar compared to the Canadian one. Currently, 1 US dollar is worth 1.25 Canadian dollar, which makes it favourable to have US dollars if you’re doing anything in Canada. These shares will be sold in American dollars and the proceeds will be awarded to me in American dollars as well. Stock price notwithstanding, I automatically get a 25% bonus for selling now compared to the beginning of 2013, when it was last at par. Imagine that, an investment increasing in value by 25% in two years! That’s pretty good right?

So, that’s why I’m thinking about selling very soon. The stock price could slip again or the Canadian dollar could go back up. If I didn’t sell, I could be in for some regret.

On the other hand, these things are unpredictable. What if the stock price continues to rise? Or the Canadian dollar continues to slide? What if both of these happens? My shares could be worth even more a few months from now.

These shares have never been this valuable. Do I let it ride or cash out now while things are good? Someone tell me what to do??!?!!

I know my readers anxiously wait for this every year but the wait is finally over, I received my property tax assessment in the mail today. Since my property assessment went down this year, I was expecting my property tax to go down as well. To my relief, my property taxes are indeed less compared to last year, by 10%.

What will I do with that extra money? Well, can I even call it extra money actually? It’s just money I didn’t spend on taxes. Anyways, the amount is fairly small so there’s not a lot of options. I could put it towards an existing RRSP or TFSA account. That’s always a smart choice. Maybe I should bet on hockey again. Despite my wishes against it, I feel like the Anaheim Ducks will win the Cup this year. I want to be wrong but it looks like the safe bet at this point. Or perhaps I should spend it on a nice dinner, like a 20 piece bucket with fries.

For all the other homeowners out there, good luck with your taxes!

I’m not sure when they started doing this but Safeway Canada tweets out an amazing deal every Monday. The deal usually involves two or three items that you have to buy together and the price is around $6. There is some choice in items you can buy. Take for example today’s deal:

Get a perogies, sour cream, & Haagen Dazs for $5.99+tax #SafewayDeals #Canada #yyc #yeg #yvr #ywg pic.twitter.com/WvTyZ0vLUZ

— Safeway Canada (@SafewayCanada) May 25, 2015

There were many varieties of perogies to choose from, as well as different gelato and ice cream flavours. On a normal day, these three items would have totaled over $12 together but with today’s deal it was just $5.99. I like perogies, sour cream, and ice cream so it was an easy choice for me.

Last week’s deal was:

Get a gnocchi, sauce, & parmesan cheese for $5.99+tax #SafewayDeals #Canada #yyc #yeg #yvr #ywg pic.twitter.com/XoyCI3tm9p

— Safeway Canada (@SafewayCanada) May 18, 2015

I’m not a big fan of gnocchi and parmesan, so I let this one pass. I didn’t get in on the following deal but I sure would have!

Get a pizza, ice cream & choice of drink see pic for details for $5.99+tax #SafewayDeals #Canada #yyc #yeg #yvr #ywg pic.twitter.com/GqSTPMklO1

— Safeway Canada (@SafewayCanada) May 11, 2015

If you decide to partake in any of these deals, I believe you have to inform the cashier when they ring it up. I’ve also heard people say you can’t buy anything else on the same bill. Not sure about that one. I know if you do the self-checkout, one of the Safeway staff has to enter in a special code for the deal to work. I tried scanning all three items and the prices remained non-discounted. Happy saving!

As the R-rated trailer above shows, the movie Ted 2 is coming out in late June. I saw the first one in the theatres, enjoyed it, and I want to see the sequel. For Ted 2, however, I will most definitely obtain the movie through pirate-like means. This may come as surprise to you, as I’ve stated many times before that I refuse to view and obtain entertainment like movies and games through less than legal means. It’s because I would find it hypocritical to ask people to buy the games that I make, yet pirate movies and games myself. Because of this, I don’t think I’ve torrented a movie in over ten years and it was probably 1993 when I last played a pirated game. For Ted 2, I will make an exception and that is because of one Mr. Mark Wahlberg.

Before he became a successful entertainer with a net worth of several millions of dollars, Wahlberg was straight up a punk-ass racist son of a bitch. His run-ins with the law are well-documented, including the time he assaulted two older Vietnamese men, essentially sucker punching them after shouting racial epithets at them. Wahlberg appeared to be proud of the assaults, admitting to investigators that he was the one who perpetrated the crimes against the “slant-eyed gooks”, a term he freely used when questioned.

Wahlberg was charged with attempted murder for his crimes but only plead guilty to assault. His two-year sentence was not served fully, as he was let out after just 45 days. Since he has become rich and famous, he has not made any efforts to reach out to any of the men he assaulted that day, despite his considerable power to do so now. In fact, Wahlberg has applied to state of Massachusetts for a full pardon for his crimes. Wahlberg states his reason for applying for a pardon is because he’s turned his life around and does “good work” for other people now. Yet, for all his “good work”, he has done nothing for the victims for this crimes.

Others have smartly discovered that Wahlberg’s ultimate reason for applying for the pardon is purely business. He is looking to expand his restaurant business into California and cannot get the right permits/licenses as a convicted felon. A pardon would remove such roadblocks. There is considerable opposition to Wahlberg’s application for a pardon, including the prosecutor who sent Wahlberg to jail and the organization 18 Million Rising, an organization that supports Asian-Americans.

Despite the fact that one of the men that Wahlberg assaulted has stated he forgives him, I see no reason for him to receive a full pardon. He has never fully acknowledged the racial nature of his crime, which would probably be prosecuted as a hate crime now. With his star-power and wealth, he has not done anything to make amends with his victims. The pardon reeks of business undertones, just so he can sling burgers in California.

I realize that if I don’t pay to see Ted 2, that won’t make a damn difference to Wahlberg’s career but I can’t in good conscience support his movie. I will gladly pirate this film when it comes out later next month. Apologies to everyone else who was involved in Ted 2, I’ll get ya back on a non-Wahlberg film next time.