MOVE ALONG

It was a pretty uneventful day so I’m afraid I don’t have a lot to say. I had diced chicken with cashew nuts for lunch. Dinner consisted of sushi. By the way, never let the delivery guy leave you without chopsticks or soy sauce if you order sashimi. Have you ever tried sashimi without soy? It tastes like raw fish!

The evening finished up with a few drinks with the boys at Earl’s. Now I am home.

GAME ANNOUCEMENT

As some of you know, I’ve been working on a single game since the middle of June. I haven’t said much about it since they make you sign all these non-disclosure agreements when you get hired. Several weeks ago, we were told that the game would be announced to the public in Barcelona the second weekend in October. That would make it next weekend. I was really looking forward to that since I could then finally tell everyone what I was working on and point them towards a web site or other promotional material. That kinda all changed Friday at 5pm.

The entire game team was herded into the lounge for a meeting. This was weird since we usually don’t have team meetings near the end of the week, especially so late on a Friday. There were some really important company big-wigs at the meeting too.

I cannot divulge exactly what was said at the meeting except to say there were some suprising news. What I can say is that I’ll be working on the game a few more months than I had anticipated. Last but not least, there is also tiny, teensy small chance I’ll be moving to Prince Edward Island for a few months… sometime in late winter or early spring… maybe… we’ll see.

HMMMM…

I have nothing really of value to write about today. I’m not sure if I’m just too tired or nothing interesting happened. It’s probably a bit of both.

Why don’t we all just admire an image of Yoda pulling his lightsaber out of a clone trooper’s chest?

SIDE BUSINESS

So this was unexpected, but I’ve started a little side business at work. Let me explain the situation. As I’ve mentioned before, we get groceries delivered to work every Tuesday. Among the many items we receive are cans of soft drinks, pop if you prefer. Regular Classic Coke is by far the favourite. It runs out sometimes by the end of the workday on Wednesday. Crazy. Some people refuse to drink the Canada Dry and Diet Coke that’s left. We have an IGA kitty-corner to our office but people are also too lazy to go outside and buy their own Coke.

Now remember that chocolate I was talking about three posts down? I’ve brought a few packages to work. My co-workers have seen the chocolate. Chocolate is not part of the groceries the company buys for us. I’ve opened a few packages of the Reese Peanut Butter Cups in the process of eating them and left them on my desk.

Because there are no other chocolate bars in the office, at least two co-workers have bought single Reese Peanut Butter Cups from me. They’ve given me $0.25 per cup which is great since they cost me about $0.18 a cup to purchase. It’s not a great profit but a decent and honest transaction.

Where I really make my money is with my own stash of Coke. One day when the Coke had run out, I decided to go to the IGA to get my own. I had done this several times before but this time I wondered why the hell was I just getting one serving of Coke each time. It made more sense to buy like 12 cans of Coke and just store them at my desk. I could just freeze one up when the company supply of Coke ran out.

I had intended to keep the stash for myself but soon people started noticing my large box of 12 cans of sugary goodness. I gave my first can away for free since I didn’t even think of selling it. The second guy though insisted on giving me a loonie for a can. It cost me about $0.50 a can so this was pretty good. A couple other people came by as well and I sold them cans too.

Today, Trent the Creative Director for the whole company, a bigwig in no uncertain terms, actually came by my cubicle. I’ve never talked to Trent since I’ve been with the company.

“I hear you’ve got the goods.”

“The first can is free.”

I tried to give him a free can but he wouldn’t have it. He gave me a loonie. That’s when it dawned on me this might be a good way to make spare change. Oh sure, the lean days would be Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but by the time Thursday rolls around, they’ll be begging for Coke and chocolate… that’s when The Sugar ManTM will hook you up.

THE LITTLE MOUSE THAT COULD

I know I promised you tales of long bus rides, my lunch, and bugs leaving body orifices but to be honest, I’ve touched upon those same subjects in previous blog posts. Here’s a fun game, try to find those posts.

If you’re like me, you love reading blog posts about things that have absolutely no meaning and add little to no insight on life. This my friends is such a post.

About two years ago I bought an optical Logitech mouse. I even blogged the event in a memorable post. I still have the mouse. The first time I plugged the mouse in, it glowed red, a wonderful, warm shade of red. Then when I shut down my computer, it continued to glow red. As I sat there, looking at my new mouse, I wondered, “Hmmm… this sumbitch is still getting power.”

I thought that the little LED that made it glow red might burn out too quickly if it was on all the time. What could I do though? Unplug my mouse everytime I shut down my computer? Nah, I knew I was too lazy for that.

So, I kept it plugged in. At night, when I was in bed, I could see my mouse bathed in an ethereal red glow on my desk. Sometimes, I would move a chair in front of it so I would stare at the glow all night.

For over two years, my mouse has glowed red almost non-stop save for a few power outages and the odd move to and from UBC. Total time in the last two years when wasn’t plugged in? Probably less than ten hours. That’s pretty good for a $13 mouse.

If you’ve read this far, congrats on learning something that didn’t enrich your life in any way.

TOO MUCH FUN

Well, the data cable for my cell phone arrived in the mail today, which meant most of my abbreviated evening was taken up by my new toy. I’ll be back tomorrow with more about what I had for lunch, links to bugs coming out of people’s orifices, and how long my bus ride is.

CHOCOLATE AND JON STEWART

I was at the Lougheed Mall Wal-Mart today. If you’ve been reading my blog for the last couple of years, you’ll know I have this “amazed by the low prices”-hate relationship with Wal-Mart. On one hand, I know that Wal-Mart has poor labour practices. They’ll take advantage of every little thing they can get away with when it comes to their employees. On the other hand, because of their shoddy behaviour, their prices are so damn low!

I feel bad about it, but I bought chocolate at Wal-Mart today. Again, I’m rehashing myself, but buying candy and chocolate must be one of the biggest consumer ripoffs. Case in point, it probably costs about a dollar to get those three packs of Reese Peanut Butter Cups. Because we’re nearing Halloween, Wal-Mart has now started to sell those bulk packs of chocolate and candy. The price of a four-pack Reese PBCs? $2.16 my friend. That’s a savings of about 50%.

If you eat candy or chocolate on a regular basis, Halloween is the best time to stock up on this crap. I bought a couple of packs to leave at work. Maybe some of my co-workers will have a few so I don’t eat all of them.

In totally unrelated news, we all know how good Jon Stewart is when it comes to skewering politicians on The Daily Show. The man is smart and witty, often making a fool of American politicians for their actions. Do you ever wonder if those politicians find out what Stewart is saying about them? I certainly do. Here’s an article that reveals how many politicians actually watch his show.

DO YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT?

While cleaning up a few days ago, I found an old pay statement from the summer of 2000. It was from the third week or so since I had started my job as a games tester at EA. I was making $10.50 an hour at the time. I got paid twice a month just like most of you. Each paycheque after taxes netted me a grand total of $647.94. I made about $1300 a month.

I knew that was low at the time, but I’m surprised at how little that mattered to me back then. I was still living at home at the time, so that helped. I wonder now at how my co-workers were able to pay for rent, food, clothes, and entertainment. Now that I think of it, I’m surprised that some of them even owned vehicles.

Here’s another crazy stat, I was able to save approximately $10 000 in the year and a half that I worked there. Mind you I was making about $12.50 an hour near the end and I got paid handsomely for my crazy overtime hours. Still, it was an impressive feat given my base salary didn’t go above $23 000 before taxes.

Heady times indeed.

COMMUTE

I miss my bus rides out from UBC to work. The air seemed fresher and the days more sunny. My long-haul commutes out to Vancouver now are decidedly less enjoyable. For one, everyone seems grumpy that they have to commute from Port Moody or beyond out to Vancouver. I could also mention how less attractive everyone is on a suburban bus but that would just make me seem superficial, so let’s not go there.

The most striking thing about my bus rides are the amount of old people that bus into Vancouver in the morning. Where are these old people going? What are they doing once they get into Vancouver? When do they go back?

Seniors can cough a lot on the bus. One guy this morning had a really wet, hacking cough. Mmmm…. tasty. He got a tissue out. I think he may have saved it for later.

Once I get downtown though, I feel much better. It’s like I’m back into my comfort zone. The commute back home at night is certainly more interesting. The bus goes through the downtown eastside along Hastings. At night, the scene is much more gritty. You can usually see at least half a dozen people pushing shopping carts full of stuff and always against the light. Why is that? It’s kinda like bizarro Kits.

Ok, enough rambling for tonight.