Category: Uncategorized

I finally weighed myself again last week. I was doing this in preparation to see how much weight I needed to lose before starting my job search. I knew I had gained a few pounds during the summer since I was at work so much and my diet was not the best. I decided to spend a whole month just eating whatever I wanted to before buckling down and getting to a healthier weight.

Before I did the weigh-in, I had noticed that I wasn’t looking that fat in the mirror. I chalked it up to just an illusion that I was trying to project onto myself and that I was indeed a bit chubby. Well, when I got back on the scale, to my surprise, I’d already lost about six pounds since I stopped working. I did this without doing an extra exercise or really watching my diet. In a previous post, I mentioned how I was already eating much less compared to when I working. It was this and the combination of getting a lot of rest every day that must have led to the weight loss.

I think I could easily just pat myself on the back and not get more exercise and continue to eat whatever I want but that’s not the right way to approach this. Going forward, I’ll try to be more active and start to watch my diet more. Once again, I’ve proven that when I don’t work, that will lead to weight loss.

For many years now I’ve had this fear of missing my stop when riding on public transit because I was asleep. I’ve written about it many times, including the one instance where I actually did miss my stop. Luckily it was a minor inconvenience since I only went to the next station and the two stations are very close together.

Well, about two weeks ago it happened again. I was scheduled to have lunch with some of my former co-workers on a weekday. I wanted to see how they were doing and to discuss how successful we were in launching Halo to the appreciative gaming public (ha!). Unfortunately, the night before I stupidly drank some Coke Zero and had a cup of tea, thereby ingesting a massive amount of caffeine. My body loves to stay up late anyways, so I was wide awake all through the night and early morning despite my attempts to get some rest. I believe I might have procured an hour to possibly an hour and a half of sleep before needing to wake up to make it to lunch. I felt absolutely awful though and was in a zombie like state. I did not want to bail on lunch though so I went.

Lunch was great and I was able to make the best of it. Seeing everyone that I used to work with was awesome. After lunch, I was feeling the lack of sleep so I hopped on the Skytrain to go home. Once onboard, I could tell I was really tired because I couldn’t remember the last time I had this level of exhaustion. I fell asleep very quickly and it was a very deep sleep. Normally, when I fall asleep on public transit it’s a very light sleep where I can usually wake up just enough to see what station I’m at. This time I was in a very deep slumber. I wonder if I snored. Man, that would be embarrassing.

When I finally woke up, it took me about a second to realize that I had missed my station. As I regained my senses, I saw the automated doors were closing and the train was leaving the station after my stop. Then I realized I was on the particular line that takes you over to Surrey, the crime-ridden suburb that you want to avoid if you can. I can’t remember the last time I willingly went to Surrey but here I was, going over the Skybridge to dangers unknown. Of course, I was just going to get off at the next station and take the next train going back. I was just hoping to not get shanked on the platform while I waited for said train. To my delight and relief, as my train was pulling into the station, a train going the other way was doing the same as well. I ran across the platform and into the right train car.

Luckily, I made it home safe and sound. It only took utter and total exhaustion for me to miss my stop by a country mile.

I have returned from the UFG holiday party. I don’t think I’ve felt this full from any holiday party in recent memory. There was generous portions of roast turkey, baked ham, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, vegetables of many kinds, salad, and later on desserts, including a chocolate fountain fondue. The carving station was giving out random, giant turkey legs to people. They barely fit on the plate. One of my friends was a lucky recipient of such a leg and he had a difficult time eating all the meat off it.

There was an abundance of drink tickets too, so much so that I had to give away five of them before I left. Almost seven hours after eating dinner, I still feel stuffed. I probably ate way too much. I had a lovely time and as always, UFG made it a well-organized evening. I think I will go lie down now.

For years, I’ve been trying to get invited to the holiday parties for some of the companies I used to work for. After I got laid off from EA in late 2010, I tried every year to be someone’s +1 for their parties. Having attended many of their holiday and wrap parties, it was easy to see EA had the resources to throw a damn good party. Despite all efforts, I could not find a single person to let me be their +1. I probably didn’t ask the right people.

Well, I’m happy to announce that I am indeed a +1 for tomorrow’s UFG holiday party. It probably worked in my favour that up until two months ago, I was one of their employees. I asked a guy that used to sit right across from my work desk if he was bringing anyone to the party. He said no, so he’s graciously allowed me to be his guest at tomorrow’s party. We got along really well during my time on Halo so I believe that’s why he’s doing this huge favour for me.

The Halo wrap party was just a month ago so it will be great to see everyone again so soon. That party was at a bar so it was a stand and mingle type party with appies. The holiday party is at a restaurant and apparently it’s a sit-down dinner type of affair. Fancy!

As an unemployed dude, I’m just happy to get a free meal and to see all my old co-workers again.

As many of you know I’m not working right now, which enables me to stay up super late and sleep in until shortly before people start leaving work for the day. That’s great and all but there’s no denying the incoming cash flowing isn’t what it used to be. While I’m not about to miss mortgage payments or anything, I wouldn’t complain if some random dollars started coming in. To that end, this evening, I posted my very first Craigslist ad. After my latest computer upgrades, I discovered I have a decent amount of computer parts lying around, most of which are new enough to be sold for a reasonable amount of money.

I’m selling my three extra video cards first because they’re the most time sensitive components. The longer I wait to sell these, the more advanced the newer cards will be, which means my cards will be even more outdated and worth less. I’d be happy to get $150 to for all three cards. I also have some RAM, a working motherboard, a possibly busted motherboard, a Intel Core 2 Duo processor, two power supplies, and a giant PC case to sell. These will be tougher to sell, especially the power supplies and the case but if I could get sell the rest, I’d consider that a victory.

I don’t even know if anyone will even offer to buy the video cards. I did my research before deciding on prices. Who’s gonna want to buy a used part when it’s priced as much a new one? In general, I tried to price it to sell without basically giving it away. For example, the newest video card I’m selling still retails for about $120 or higher in some cases but I’m selling it for $80. Seems like a reasonable price?

I hope I don’t get ripped off somehow.

It’s currently -3 degrees Celsius in Vancouver right now but it feels much colder than that. I refuse to turn on the heat, so I’m wearing a hoodie all zipped up and some socks. The area is under a bit of a cold spell right now. In contrast, it will be a balmy 16 degrees Celsius in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday! Traditionally, the roles are usually reversed, with D.C. having the cold winters and us having the mild, wet ones.

With the weather being this cold, I’ve admittedly have not found too much motivation to leave my home in the last few days. I’ve went outside to get some groceries and today I had lunch with a friend but that’s about it. The cold weather also dries out my skin too which I hate. I’ve resorted to lathering up large swaths of my body with moisturizer as soon as I jump out of the shower. I can easily tell which parts I’ve missed a few hours later because my skin starts to itch there.

Luckily, this cold snap will end toward mid-week when the temperatures will rise and the familiar rain will return. I can’t wait!

I was at the supermarket recently in the soup aisle. I’m fond of the Campbell’s Chunky soup line of products. I refuse to pay more than $2 a can for these things but it was my lucky day as they were on sale for $1.50 a pop.

I noticed they had a new kind of soup I’d never tried before, “roadhouse chili-style” soup. Chili and I have a long history. For many years I did not enjoy chili as I did not like the taste nor the texture of the beans used in chili. Some chilis are extremely spicy as well and I’m not particularly fond of spicy foods. For better or worse, it was Wendy’s chili that won me over. Their chili isn’t spicy at all and they cook the beans so that they go down really smooth.

So I saw this can of chili from Campbell’s and I decided it was worth a test. On Tuesday evening, I heated up the chili as my snack after a very light dinner. As with all Chunky soups, no water was required, just heat and serve in a saucepan. Also, since I’m lazy, I eat the soup right out of the saucepan as well.

I immediately noticed that this chili was more spicy than I’m used to. This chili was packing some heat. I also wasn’t a fan of the texture of the beans, a bit too rough for my tastes. It wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t my favourite type of chili either.

About an hour after I finished eating, I began to get very, very gassy. I was dropping sonic bombs every ten minutes. It was quite the sight (or sound) to behold. No matter how much air I passed, there was more to come. I eventually had to go to bed but that did not stop the relentless wind coming out of my backside. I had a slight worry that I might even poop the bed while sleeping.

Upon waking, I was relieved to see I had not pooped the bed during the night. I did discover, however, that I continued to be gassy. I began to wonder how long this would last. This question was answered in the early afternoon when I had what can only be described as a bowel movement of significant distinction with regard to many unspeakable qualities. It was after this that I stopped producing above normal amounts of gas.

I’m not sure what was in that chili that caused this. Was it the type of beans? Was it the spiciness? Or perhaps the combination of the two? Whatever it was, I am not going to try that type of chili ever again.

The Vancouver Canucks were in Columbus for US Thanksgiving and despite only having four Americans on the team, all the boys sat down for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. There was of course turkey but also all the side and fixings such as potatoes, green beans, stuffing, gravy, and three different types of pie. It seems like a grand time was had and you know you’re in good hands when the gravy is served in a huge jug like that.

Good old UFG gave me a free digital download code for Halo: The Master Chief Collection today. Awesome gesture on their part as most developers I know appreciate getting a free copy of the game they worked on. I currently don’t own an Xbox One and I’m not sure if I ever will but at least I know I can play the game if I ever do. As for the game itself, it’s still suffering from a few problems but the latest patch appears to have made things much better. The extreme vitriol from angry gamers seems to be subsiding somewhat on the message boards.

I took advantage of a pre-Black Friday online sale yesterday and bought a new video card. Originally priced at $200, it went down to $120. Did I really need a new video card? Perhaps no but there’s already a few games out there that I wouldn’t be able to play without the upgrade. I’m also pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to play GTA 5 when it comes out early in 2015. If you’re actually interested in how much of difference this new video card made to my gaming performance, this link shows about a 2x increase.

For lunch, I was weak and went to KFC at a food court. While I was getting a straw to put in my drink that the KFC employee had put down for me, I accidentally put the straw into another dude’s drink. Ok, in my defense, my blood sugar was low. Also, this dude’s drink was right next to me and he was like standing five feet away. Who doesn’t take their own drink and doesn’t put the straw in right away? Luckily, he was pretty chill about it and the KFC woman gave him a totally new drink. Hopefully, I don’t dip my straw into another dude’s drink again anytime soon.

My alma mater is the University of British Columbia. Over the course of two degrees, I’ve had many interactions with UBC faculty and staff. This evening, I found a link to a thorough report regarding UBC’s finances for the fiscal year ending in March of 2014. This isn’t a leaked document or anything, it’s supposed to be publicly available as per regulations. I just never bothered to look at something like this before.

Sure this PDF document contains some very dry numbers that I don’t care about but the interesting part to me is the list of every single university employee that makes more than $75,000 a year. Since the document is easily searchable, I quickly looked up the salaries of most of my old professors and instructors. There were no real big surprises, every single one of the profs I looked up had PhDs in science or engineering so of course they had six-figure salaries. UBC pays as well as it can to attract talent so profs are making good coin.

I was quite pleased to see some people making the money that they do. I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with some quality educators and they deserve every penny the university gives them. It was also interesting to see the spread in some of the salaries within a department. I noticed two of my old mechanical engineering profs have the same title but the spread in salary was about $80K.

Last but not least, I am guilty of looking up the salaries of certain people I know who work at UBC. These aren’t my old profs, these are my friends so I did this somewhat sheepishly. Should I have not looked? Maybe?! Anyways, I’m very happy for the people who made the >$75K list because they truly do deserve their salaries. You can buy me lunch next time!