I went to lunch today with some co-workers at Earl’s on Kingsway. When we walked in, I noticed a small clipboard that listed a party of 20 and then another party of 10 were already having lunch. I began to wonder if our food was going to take forever to arrive. I was sorta right. We wound up waiting for about 25 minutes for our food, which wasn’t horrendous but certainly not great either. The manager felt bad for us and decided to comp our meals. That was a nice touch.
Totally off-topic but I’m getting a ton of spam comments with the new blog. Would it bug anyone if I added CAPTCHAs to the comment form?
This evening I attended the annual general meeting held by the strata council for the apartment building I live in. Though I was tempted to skip it, the responsible homeowner part of me decided it was in my best interest to show up.
To make a long story short, the meeting last three and a half hours. We debated and voted on issues relating to parking, moving, pets, fees, budgets, and other interesting things. I must mention that we made it a by-law that you can’t run a brothel in the building. Whoops, there goes my idea for a home business.
After being in that conference room for nearly four hours I can’t think straight anymore and I have a headache. I know they only have these meetings once a year but even at that frequency it seems to often.
After I bought my apartment my real estate agent told me not to look at property listings for a quite awhile. She was trying to prevent me from comparing prices after the deal was done, when nothing could be done about my purchase. Of course, I ignored her and have been looking at listings in my building and the other towers in my complex ever since.
This afternoon, I was returning from tennis outing when I noticed an open house sign outside my building lobby. I was curious as to what floor plan was for sale and for how much. It turned out that the realtor was in the lobby waiting for people to come by. He was a younger agent perhaps late 20s to early 30s. He offered to bring me up to a two-bedroom and show me around and also give me a price listing of the other apartments available in the building. I was able to see one of the two-bedroom layouts that I’d never seen before so that was quite interesting. I then inquired about the one-bedroom that was also for sale. Now this is the other one-bedroom layout in the building and it’s smaller in size than mine. The realtor told me the unit currently had a tenant so he couldn’t show it to me but he had some photos of the place on his digital camera.
He brought out his camera and proceeded to show me a wonderful view from the balcony of this apartment. He then pressed a button to show the previous picture. I was expecting another shot of the apartment but what we both saw was something entirely different. What I saw instead was a young woman with makeup on, reclining on what appeared to be a black leather couch of sorts. She was dressed in what appeared to be a black silk robe or teddy. She was posed both seductively and playfully. There was a mischievous smile on her face. One of her legs was bent, showing off a bit of leg. To be clear, there wasn’t any nudity and the picture wasn’t any more scandalous than any 50s pinup picture.
Nonetheless, the realtor appeared to be momentarily embarrassed and could only muster a “whoops” before quickly pressing another button to advance the picture back to the original balcony view. He then proceeded to show me the rest of the pictures which I no longer had any interest in. After I got the price list from him, I thanked him for his time and left.
Let this be a lesson for you. If you’re going to use a camera for business, don’t mix your personal stuff with your work related shots.
Since my Monte Carlo is frequently in the shop for repairs, I take public transit a lot. The bus is a mode of transportation that figures prominently in my travels among the public. For those who don’t take transit too often, let me give you some background on bus routes. For the most part, bus routes have a beginning and an end. There is a distinct place where the bus starts and another distinct place where the bus ends its route and has to stop. I’ve heard of routes that are circular but those are rare.
In all my years of bus riding, I’ve seen an odd occurrence that happens from time to time. When the bus is approaching its last stop, a rider will sometimes pull the cord to signal they want to get off at the next stop. This is redundant because the next stop is the end of the route and the bus is going to stop anyways. Even if no one pulled the cord, the driver would have made the stop. Of course, the cord is pulled sometimes because the person is new to the route and they just want to be sure the bus stops for them. In this case, I can understand. In other cases though, I’m positive that person knows the route. So why pull the cord? Is it just something to do? I wonder.
When I took possession of my apartment in February of 2009 I bought a lot of new household items. One of those new items was a bottle of dishwashing liquid. It took me until tonight to use the whole bottle up. That bottle was deceptively large. In the year and five months, I wonder how many dishes I washed.
Tonight the Vancouver Canucks were once again eliminated in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs in what has become an annual exercise in disappointment. Once again, a Canucks team, which did so well in the regular season, failed to live up to expectations and bailed out of the playoffs in disastrous fashion.
I have to admit though, I never thought this year’s team was really a serious Cup contender. Which brings me to my next point. There are dumb hockey fans no matter what city you look in but there are certainly a fair share here in Vancouver. Every year, at the beginning of the season, there are invariably a large number of Canucks fans who say, “the Canucks are going to win the Cup this year.” What a stupid statement to make, especially when they make that statement without even fairly assessing the team. A true hockey fan is one a knowledgeable fan, one who has watched enough hockey to know the makeup of a team that truly has the pieces to make a serious Cup run. Every year though, there are idiots here in Vancouver who proclaim the current team is the “best Canucks team ever”, just because it’s the current team. These people have no sense of history and are blinded to reality. It’s mainly younger fans who fall into this category, just because they don’t know better. Sadly, a lot of people thought this year’s edition of the Canucks “were the best ever” but that’s not true. If you don’t believe me, ask Jim Robson, he’ll tell you the truth.
I guess I should temper my criticism of this year’s team because they were riddled with injuries with regard to their defensive corps. Losing Willie Mitchell for half a season and all of the playoffs was a severe blow. Then continuing to lose d-men and having to play guys like Andrew Alberts just made things worse. Winning teams don’t use excuses though. They find a way to win, no matter what adversity they may face. It may not be fair but I have to single out one player on the team. The play of team captain and the highest paid player, Roberto Luongo was not at a satisfactory level. He has yet to prove himself as a playoff goalie. Let’s not even mention the Olympics. Winning the gold medal with the most talented players on the planet in front of him did not prove he could play under pressure when it matter. Bobby Lou basically sucked after the Olympics were over. Sure, he had short flashes of brilliance here and there but he failed to string together enough consistent performances. A true playoff goaltender puts together enough good performances so that his play makes a positive impact. Having one good period in every five or six doesn’t help your team.
Though I’m hearing it less and less, every year I hear people say Roberto Luongo is the best goalie the Canucks have ever had. Those people could not be more wrong. Since 1994, the best netminder ever that played for Vancouver has been Kirk McLean. His performance in the spring of 1994 exemplifies all the qualities a true playoff goalie exudes. He was brilliant throughout four long playoff series. He was calm, cool, and collected. He didn’t let opposing players or circumstances bother him. He stole games for his team when Vancouver had no business winning games. If you’re tired of watching Bobby Lou let in five plus goals in critical playoff games, I invite you to view the video above. Kirk McLean turns aside 52 shots to lead his team to victory in game one of the Stanley Cup Finals (not a measly round two game). When Luongo can lead his team into the Finals, you let me know.
The fourth game that I’ve had the pleasure of shipping is out on store shelves today. It is with some bittersweet feelings that I see skate 3 released to the public. The team that I worked with to make all three skate games will always be near and dear to me. They were simply the best people I’ve ever worked with. Unfortunately, I was deemed expendable as soon as the game was done, which clearly isn’t the best way for a company to show their appreciation for everyone’s hard work.
Nonetheless, skate 3 represents a whole lot of effort from a lot of talented people, some of which don’t have jobs right now. If you’re at all interested in playing a pretty good skateboarding game, I suggest looking for it at your local video game retailer. Buying it would be the digital equivalent of pouring one out for me, your homie. In any case, enjoy the above intro video from skate 3.
I spent almost an hour looking at WordPress themes on the weekend and nothing really jumped out at me. When I do pick a few themes I do like, I’d like you, my loyal readers, to provide some feedback as to what you’d like to see here. In fact, if you see a theme (free or not) that you think might work here, please let me know. I’d love nothing better than for someone to do a bit of the work for me. If you’re interested, you can take a look at some themes here.
We here et.com are always on the lookout for consumer products that might be of interest to you, my loyal readers. I have found a product that might fit into that category.
Reebok has introduced a shoe for women called the “EasyTone”. It’s apparently more than just an athletic shoe for women. Apparently, there’s some neat tech in the shoe that purposely introduces instability while stepping. The instability shouldn’t be enough to cause women to fall over but it’s enough so that one needs to compensate slightly. According to Reebok, it’s this slight compensation that works the muscles in the legs and butt more than a normal shoe would. Thus, the EasyTone tones muscles while simply walking.
I don’t know if the shoe actually does what Reebok says it does but it’s an interesting concept nonetheless. I encourage you to watch the commercial above. If you like that, then I strongly suggest you visit the EasyTone web site.
WordPress is an awesome blogging platform. I just installed a plugin, which took all of one minute and now I have a Facebook “like” button on all my posts. If I don’t like it, I can remove it instantly. Please note, I don’t expect anyone to really click on “like” but it makes me feel better that the option is there.