Category: Uncategorized

In an earlier post, I wrote that the money I received as part of my severance package had not been subject to tax deductions yet. I was informed of this via e-mail and at the time, I was not aware of the total amount of money that would have to go towards taxes.

This morning, I received another e-mail which actually did state how much money had to return. It turns out I only need to send back less than $200 to the government. My severance money was divided into mainly two sums, one very large one and another small one. Taxes were only not withheld on the small amount which explains why it’s such a small amount. It’s a very reasonable amount to return so I’m quite pleased.

This is the go-ahead I’ve been looking for to buy swampland in Florida.

I’ve been out with friends and former co-workers two nights in a row. I also went grocery shopping yesterday. All of these events have me spending money in amounts that perhaps I should not be. Now you might think buying groceries is necessary. Yes, that is true but I don’t think I’m buying smart. I need to start buying stuff that makes my dollars go farther. I should be buying stuff like Hamburger Helper that will last me more than a day. Pasta is cheap and ground beef is relatively cheap, both of those things together will help me draw out my money a bit further. Who knows how long I’ll be unemployed?

Hey, if I dropped by your homes, would you give me some canned food?

So as I wrote earlier this week, I had my severance package deposited into my account as a lump sum on Friday. This was a substantial chunk of change and I was taking suggestions as to how best allocate the money. I had come to the conclusion that as a first step I should probably move some of that money into a savings account that earns “high” interest. Mostly due to laziness, I haven’t moved the money yet.

Sometime this afternoon, I received an interesting e-mail from an HR representative at EA. It turns out that the payroll company that EA employs to handle paying the employees made a big boo-boo when they processed the severance package payouts. The payroll company neglected to deduct income tax from all the lump sum payments. So some of the money that was given to me and well over a hundred other people belongs to the government. The problem is that if you count the weekend, there was four whole days where people could have done anything with that money. With online services now, people could have even used the weekend to buy who knows what with the money they got.

The e-mail I received did not mention the exact the details in which the error would be corrected. I’m guessing they just figured out what went wrong and wanted to tell us as soon as possible so that we could cancel all our orders of booze and hookers. For each laid off employee, they’ll need to calculate how much tax needs to be deducted and then figure out how to get that tax money back from us. Do we give the money directly to the government? Will the money be electronically transferred out from our accounts? I am sure they’ll come up with some clever solution quite quickly.

It’s a good thing I didn’t do anything foolish with that money!

I’m pushing my bed time later and later with each passing night. It’s getting to the point where it’s probably easier for me to meet some of you for breakfast than lunch. Then again, I don’t know a single person who has enough time in the morning to have breakfast with a friend before going to work. I will draw the line at 6am. If I’m not in bed by then, I will force myself to crawl into my awesome race car bed. I had a co-worker that exhibited the same sleeping patterns as I do. He’d go to bed an hour later each night. I think it got weird when he started to go to sleep after noon but he just pushed through that zone. Once he got to an 11pm bed time, it was better.

I can keep myself pretty entertained during this wee hours of the morning but I wish there were more places that I could go to at this hour and hang out. I don’t really consider 7-11 and Denny’s as viable options. Where do shift workers go when they’re done work? Do they just go home?

Anyways, with this extra free time on my hands I decided to work on my blog a bit more. Some of you more Elvish-eyed readers might have noticed that clicking on the comment counter to the right of the post title now takes you to the comments. It was odd that this wasn’t the case to begin with but at least I’ve fixed it now. I’ve also changed the date format for posts. There was a mysterious tag that was appended to all the dates; I deleted that. I’m not a big fan of pure numerical dates so the date format is written out in words in full, just the way Doc Brown did it in 1885.

There are a few more changes to come. Stay tuned!

It’s no ocean view but the view from my apartment windows is decent. I have a great view of the city and I don’t stare directly into another apartment building. About a block away if I look down slightly, I can see into several apartments. There’s quite a few windows to choose from and when I first moved in, I thought there would be plenty of opportunity to see interesting stuff. After all, there was that time in Hawaii. Sadly, I discovered I have quite boring neighbours as I haven’t seen anything interesting happen through their windows.

There is, however, one very interesting thing I’ve noticed. Across the way, there is a window that always has its blinds open. The window is for the living room for that apartment. For as long as I can remember there is always one and only one light turned on in the living room. The light is also unique. It is a very white and pure light. It’s either a fluorescent light or one of those lights that recreates the full spectrum of visible light. I had one of those natural lights as a desk lamp at work. The light is on all the time, 24 hours a day. The brightness of the light is subdued. It’s bright enough to illuminate the apartment but it’s still somewhat dark in there.

I’ve only seen movement through the windows just a handful of times. It appears to be a dude in the apartment. He doesn’t seem to be doing anything weird in there (at least from what I see). I’m not sure if the apartment is occupied at all times. It’s a bit of mystery to me. Why is that light on all the time? Why isn’t the light brighter? What’s with the special, pure white light? Who lives there? What are they doing in there?

There’s definitely something different going on in there. I am reminded of all those movies and TV shows where someone sees something mysterious through a window. It never really ends that well.

On midnight, a lump sum payment was electronically deposited to my bank account, representing the severance package that EA gave me. Until I get another job, this will likely be last significant amount of money that will be deposited into that account. That thought is a bit sobering at the moment. On the other hand, it wasn’t exactly spare change they gave me.

I should probably move some of that money into one of my savings accounts right away. Now the delicate balancing game begins. How much of a miser do I become? How much should I enjoy myself with this money? Do I start eating mac and cheese on one day and then lobster the next? Is it too early to start looking for empties? Only time will tell what those answers will be.

I quite enjoy seeing what kind of things professional hockey players do while they’re on the road. From what they do on the plane, the food they eat, and what kind of coffee they get to go, it’s all very fascinating to me. The Vancouver Canucks are currently on a lengthy road trip and once again a photographer is chronicling their swing out east. Click here for today’s gallery where Canucks players, coaches, and staff attended the Remembrance Day ceremonies in Ottawa.

All my blog posts dating back from 2002 have now been imported into this current version of my blog. You can now read more than eight years of mainly light fluff under one roof! Enjoy!

It’s 4am in the morning right now and I need to be in downtown Vancouver before 12pm to meet a friend for lunch. Being unemployed can be fun but I also need my sleep.

In my previous post, I mentioned how I’m working on unifying all my blog posts from the beginning in one single WordPress blog. I haven’t finished the work yet but it’s nearly there. If you want a preview, click here, which is a temporary blog for all my old posts. Once I do the huge merge, I’ll delete the temporary blog. If you do some digging around, you’ll notice some of the links are screwed up and some embedded videos don’t work. This is to be expected I suppose.