Category: Uncategorized

So most people don’t know, for a software engineer who has used technology for most, if not all his life, I’m pretty behind in some areas. For example, prior to my trip to Montreal in June, I owned and used only one set of earbud headphones which I originally bought sometime around 2005. This old and beat up pair of buds used to get tangled in my messenger bag all the time. I could put them in my bag and take them out literally a second later and they’d be all tangled to hell. I suppose I could have meticulously wrapped them up and tied the ends so that they couldn’t get tangled but who has the time for that? So I was just resigned to the fact that they would get tangled no matter what and I’d have to spend a minute each time to get them untangled.

Then in June, I was heading to Montreal for a wedding. At the airport, while I was waiting for my flight, I discovered I had forgotten to bring my headphones. Not wanting to buy the crappy onboard headphones, I decided to buy a pair from one of the many stores at the boarding gates. It had probably been seven years since I had purchased a pair of earbud headphones. When I got the stupid clamshell plastic packaging off, I noticed something different about these buds. There was a plastic guide piece that you could slide up and down the wires. When you slid the piece up towards the buds, it kept the two individual wires from separating and thus causing all the tangling in the first place. So when you store the headphones, the piece is all the way up. When you’re listening with them, you slide the piece down so the wires can separate. You can see this magical piece of plastic in the photo above.

If you could have seen my face on the flight, you probably thought I was on my first airplane because I had this goofy look on my face, marveling at the fact that we, as a race, had solved the tangled headphone problem. I don’t know how long ago we solved this problem but I believe that marked a major milestone in our history. I am beginning to wonder what other problems we have solved that I don’t know about.

I had to shave my face tonight because my facial hair was getting unruly. Unlike most manly men, I grow a pretty weak beard because my facial hair doesn’t come in very densely. It grows in isolated patches so it looks terrible once it gets too long. Unfortunately for me, I had to leave my upper lip area when it came to shaving off this mess. On the weekend, I think I must have irritated that area when I went to shave it on Friday night. It got worse when I went outside and exposed it to the cold winds we had recently. It’s weird because my actual upper lip isn’t irritated, just the skin above it.

So rather than make it worse by raking a blade over that area, I left it alone. The problem is, I now have this stupidly weak looking moustache. If you Google image search “child molester moustache” you’ll see something very similar to what I’m sporting right now. The proper thing would be to take a picture and show it on here but there’s no way I’m doing that. This thing is embarrassing. I can only hope this skin irritation goes away so I can shave it all off.

I subscribe to a YouTube channel run by a user named MAKAVELI719696. I did so originally because he has the best highlight packages of Vancouver Canucks games. With the hockey lockout in full effect, he’s using his editing skills in other forms of media. The above is his take on the 3rd Presidential debate between President Obama and Governor Romney.

At around 8pm, I crawled into bed and took what turned out to be a two-hour nap. It’s now well after midnight and I am super refreshed and awake. I also feel quite mentally sharp as well. For someone who normally struggles to fall asleep under regular circumstances, it will be an even tougher endeavour to get to sleep tonight. It’s possible to I might take a sleeping pill.

In other news, someone Googled my name tonight and then found my blog. They went to the “about” section, as if they weren’t sure who I was. They then searched my blog using the term “video games”. Hey, whoever you are, if you want entertainment from my blog, you’ll wanna be searching “wang flies“.

So I went downstairs this evening to get my mail. It was after 11pm. One of the things in my mailbox was a flyer for a supermarket. I usually just toss those away and this flyer was no different. Except that when I went to drop it into the recycle bin in the mail room, I saw a photo of a meat special for the week. In that photo was a perfectly cooked steak cut so you could see the inside. The steak pink and tender looking, not overcooked, just the right blend of medium rare that I oh so love. It kinda looked like this. I didn’t really have that much to eat for dinner this evening so seeing that meat really made me want to eat a steak.

Of course, I had no raw meat upstairs, let alone a steak. I suppose I could have run into Safeway before close and grabbed a steak. Though with a proper marinate and then cooking, it would have been well after midnight before I’d be chomping on steak. I decided against that. Now that I’m writing about this, I’m thinking about steak again. Man, maybe I shoulda made some steak.

This is probably my favourite segment from the show Scare Tactics, a hidden camera show that tries to horrify its victims. As you can tell by that one dude that essentially smiles through the whole thing (terrible acting man!), some of those people were in on the scheme.

So when you start a new job, you look for certain things to see if they’re up to a particular standard. You wonder how well your break room/kitchen is stocked. Is your desk big? How many monitors will I get? Do I get a window? How nice are the washrooms?

So in my case, I certainly did wonder about the washrooms. I’ve been spoiled in past jobs. At EA downtown, there was this private, executive-style bathroom on my floor. It had a marble counter, wood-paneling, and great accent lighting. At my last job, there were single occupant washrooms where you could do your business in private. When I got to my current I job, I noticed they had a normal, shared washroom on our floor. Now we share the floor with other businesses so it’s just not us males using that washroom.

I got my first warning on my first day at work when some dude mentioned the urinals to me. When I stepped inside, I immediately noticed what he was talking about. Whoever made this washroom decided the urinals (of which there are two) should be no more than six inches apart, edge to edge. There are also no dividers between said urinals. They are so close together, when you’re standing at one, dongs are well within peripheral range. Hell, at these distances, is it even your peripheral vision anymore? More like right in front of you practically. The dudes in my office don’t even go to the urinals anymore if they see that the other is already occupied. There’s an unwritten rule that if one is taken, you go to one of the stalls to relieve yourself. That’s great but the idiots from the other businesses on our floor don’t seem to know this. It’s wang on, wang off for them.

As if that’s not bad enough, this washroom has the two smallest stalls I’ve ever seen in a washroom. If you sit on one of the toilets, there’s probably a foot on either side of you before you hit either a wall or the other stall wall. It’s like pooping in phone booth. More importantly, this also means the toilets are about two feet apart. Yes, that close. If both stalls are occupied, it means that two dudes are literally pooping about two feet from each other. Hell, even those two dudes weren’t pooping, two feet is infringing on personal space just standing next to each other. Consider now that they’re flatuating and groaning in close proximity. It’s so close together, two dudes could easily reach under the stall wall and hold hands while pooping.

The washroom situation at work isn’t all that great. We’ve complained but there’s not much they can do. I think at the very least they should install a urinal divider. Enough with the wang show!

Steven Yeun from The Walking Dead congratulates a couple on their engagement on his personal YouTube channel. For reasons unknown to me, he gets his co-star Lauren Cohan to help. You might wanna turn the volume down for this video.

I’m no fan of the Republican party, far from it. I’m hoping for another four years of a Democratic White House. If the world is going to hell, I might as well make a few dollars at the same time.