Whats this I have 1706

Twitter followers?

Hard to believe since I had 32 juat yesterday. I'm not complaining mind you.

I'm having a decent day off today

today hoping I can upload my first YouTube video. According to Wiki, YouTube gets about 100,000 uploads of video each day! That's a lot of video. If this works, I'll post a link on my Blogger blog maybe even insert the video as well.

Anne's out at the veggie market today. Someone last night while she was working stole some eggs from their lunch room fridge at her place of work. Her place of work (I wont say the name) are a bunch of scumbags. They wont put in security cameras in the lunchroom. Our place doesn't either but they removed the whole fridge. We're getting cameras installed eventually. The boss says they have them in Vancouver and Calgary. Anne knows a lot better now not to leave anything in that fridge. The other thing is her place of employment posts on the white board when her breaks are. Yeah like that helps out a lot. They do this for everyone and with 40+ people working there on any given night they know when she takes her breaks to go in and help themselves and place it in their tote bags.

I had 2 numbers on my 6/49 ticket last night. If I had the bonus number I would have won $5. Last week I won $10. I usually win small amounts like that. I've never had anything like 4 numbers or anything like that.

Thanks to a pointer from SF Signal Data Blog has posted a spreadsheet of every TV Doctor Who villain. They don't go into the villain's in the over 300 Doctor Who books or anything. Its a pretty good spreadsheet. You can head over to Data Blogs Flicker Group and check it out there as well.

Speaking about Doctor Who, its on at 5pm on Space. I'll be glad when we get that PVR so I can watch all this stuff. The thing with the router/modem combo might have the same problem as in our ISP's existing wifi all-in-one: They let you hook up a laptop and that's it. We've got 4 other wifi enabled devises here and I need them through Bluetooth to talk with the router/modem. If we can get everything working together then I can get onto Xbox live and start playing some of those other games other then Oblivion.

Ok now that the batteries are charged and Anne's out lets shoot this video. Anyway, that's all for today.

Kind of in a hurry today

I’m up early this morning about to have my first coffee. We’re getting a bit of rain and some thunder out there.

So, BP finally was able to cap the leak yesterday after what 85 days of spilling out tons of oil? They’re trying to get a couple of relief wells going but it’s like using a garden hose a few inches under ground and if it leaks along the way could cause even more trouble.

The Atomic Age began on this day 1945 when the US detonated its first Atomic bomb. Other then the one dropped on Japan to end WW2 there hasn’t been a Nuke dropped yet. And even after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, there has yet to be any bombs stolen (that we know of) so far.

In our local news the TV trouble shooter had a spot about how this one woman kept on getting all this junk mail. It was a new change of address. Canada Post has a little box on their change of address cards one is supposed to check off saying something like, “Do not release my change of address.” it’s a little pink card at the pos office or one can do this online. This doesn’t mean that the change of address can not be used by family friends etc it just means that 3rd party vendors won’t be able to send junk mail to that new address unless the owner of the address verbally release it. Or if they leave the box on the change of address card unchecked. By the same token, as a call center agent when we call a customer and the customer has just moved within the last month or so but for example doesn’t know their postal code, instead of wasting each other’s time. I’ll put it through. I might have to rethink this now, because there are people that put change of addresses left checked off.

I have no idea why that link from yesterday wont work. My other admin site guy doesn’t know either but I have a feeling it has something to do with the recent release of Firefox. It works ok in my Blogger blog. I mention this because I’m in an interesting discussion about the future of LRT expansion in our city. This year we’ve had the Southgate/Century Park expansion and currently the Nait (Northern Alberta Institute for technology) Line is under construction. It’s an extension that’s going to run from downtown to Grant MacEwan/Glenrose hospital and finally Kingsway shopping Center and eventually over to Greisbach. The line is supposed to come online by 2014. That’s just 3 and a half years away. The discussion I’m having with Connect2Edmonton (C2E) is about the WLRT. There are several stages to this: Strategy>Concept>Design>Build>Operate. We are in the Concept stage of the WLRT stage. Funding is expected by the end of this year or early next. The City wants to have the WLRT in place by 2016 when we make a bid for the 2017 Worlds fair and 2016 is 6 years away. The wlrt will be low floor which means it will be faster to build with less construction then the current lrt. Then on top of this there is the Katz group arena complex debate going on. Lots of good stuff happening.

I woke uup this morning with a huge headache

I went to bed this morning with a splitting headache about 2am. When I woke up to take my insulin about 6am the headache was in full bloom. I don’t know if it was a headache but I felt hot and cold spells for awhile. Similar to what happened when Anne took me to the medic clinic in early January. I didn’t make much of a fuss though as I didn’t want to alarm my wife. I passed out on the couch and I woke up feeling fine about 8am and went back to bed. I had a good 4 hours from there. I feel great right now.

Saturday after work I picked up the speaker dock for my Itouch. There are several varieties of this thing found on Ebay. The other variety might look better but it fits into the re-charge and sync port of the Itouch but this one fits into a headphone slot so I can use it while I’m charging up my Itouch and on my computer as well. It takes 2 triple A batteries. I really like the one I have and it does the job even though it looks a little wonky:

Saturday night I sat on the couch about 8pm settling into watch a historic CFL game. The first BC Lions Home game out doors since 1982, 28 years ago at Empire stadium to a packed crowd of 28,000. Now I’ve never been in the Empire before but the Empire played host to Elvis and the Beatles. The Lions lost the game against a talented Rider offence. BC place is undergoing renovations, which is why the game was played there at Empire. The PNE is directly in front of it and I recall dad taking us kids to the PNE all the time in the early 1960’s. Yesterday in between Doctor Who commercials I was watching the Alouette’s/Esks game. The Esks were actually winning at the half 21-11 despite a couple of botched long passes. The receivers actually had the ball in their hands but couldn’t hold onto it, without pass interference calls. In the 2nd half it was all Montreal as they won 33-23. Now the Esks have lost their first 2 early season games in a row. First time this has happened since 1959!

Speaking about the Doctor Who episode yesterday “The Lodger,” was another excellent episode. I missed the David Tennant era but Space repeats these just before the Matt Smith, current episodes. Today I managed to stumble upon the “Wikia Doctor Who Tardis file index” and bookmarked it. This is an awesome resource for Doctor Who fans.

Tonight is another edition of Monday night Raw and apparently we’re getting our new room manager in today, if he’s not their already. Anne suggested I take today off but we’re usually short staffed on a Monday and with a new room manager aboard it doesn’t make me look good beginning my first day with this guy having it off. I wanted to go in early today but what with that headache earlier, I wasn’t in any shape to go in early. Tuesday I will. Anyway, that’s all for now.

Not a lot going on right now

My wife brought to my attention a pretty good deal the ISP competition is offering us: We get 2 pvr’s, plus an modem-router wifi combo and phone for about 40% less the first year. This deal also includes 10 free active HD channels. We need to add a few packages to get what we’re currently getting plus we get 89 channels. The 2nd year we also save $30/month off our bill. It’s a better deal then what we‘re currently getting. We could be signing up but we‘ll pay our current bill off in full before we sign up.

Trying a little experiment with street view. I lived in this building in 1999 just when Y2K was all the buzz. See the corner suite above the entrance on the top floor? That was my suite from 1996-99. 9812 156th street Edmonton. In 1999 I was paying $380 for this suite. Right now its probably renting for about $800.

It was the Oiler prospect development camp held just up here at Clairview arena yesterday. We’re a five minute walk from here and the new prospects including Taylor Hall will be back again at 10am this morning. Its an exciting time for Oiler fans again.

Today in my email subscription to the Robert J. Sawyer newsgroup, one of the members posted a rumor about Johnny Depp taking over the role of the Doctor in an upcoming Doctor Who movie. Talk about a poor casting job over that one. Anyone but Johnny Depp.

Thanks to SF Signal for the pointer. There’s a new Dragon Page podcast interviewing Tracy Hickman. For those that don‘t know who Hickman is he writes fantasy. He has written over 25 novels, many with Margaret Weise. He broke into novel publishing in 1987 with the “Darksword” series. So I’ll be downloading this podcast in the morning.

Uggh, I couldn’t sleep very much at all over night then at 6am the people next door decided that it was a good time to blast up their tunes for 2 hours.

Looks like another beautiful day out there. I’m sitting here with my first coffee trying to wake up. Anyway, that’s all for now.

As Monday's go this one seems to be okay

Saturday while winding down the last hour at work I sat beside Said about to charge up his Itouch. I said I’m picking up one of those USB chargers eventually. He said, “You never got one that came with your Itouch?” Huh?

Apparently they are shipped with each unit but when you buy from a 3rd party outlet, they take all the extra things they can get away with and sell them separately. He said you get way more things when you buy direct. In this case from the Apple store but I wanted the Itouch that afternoon when I got it 2 months ago just before Pat & Barry came by to take us out for dinner. I wasn’t going to go all the way out to WEM. But I didn’t know this at the time.
Last night I wanted to test Said’s theory. I checked out 3 separate Itouch 8 Gb “un-boxings.” And not one of those un-boxings show any USB adapter chargers. Unless all of those people bought their Itouch from a store like Future shop, this little experiment only answered part of the question. The recharger is a $35 item. I just called our local Apple store and even they said the USB recharger cube does not come with the Itouch its an item sold separately for $35. Same price as Future shop. Still for such a small thing it sure is pricey.

Last night I was trying to get a banner replacement for my site logo in Gimp 2. I got up to the bucket fill but the guy on YouTube lost me with paths. I have another YouTube that breaks posting the log and image down in a matter of minutes. Very easy to do. I’ll be doing this over the next few days.

Another problem I have is (and I think its with Firefox/Geeklog) is I can’t get hyperlinks to work in GL. They work ok for Blogger. I’m trying to get a photo Anne took of me for my banner “I’m a baby boomer Sci-fi geek with a laptop.”

We’re only +14 out there temperature wise and we’re supposed to get rain over the next few days but warmer weather is coming. I like summer when it’s about +25 but not for long periods of time, hard to sleep at night.

I’ll be leaving out of here at 4pm for my commute into the office for my 5-9 then home about 9:50pm to settle in for my Monday night Raw. I don’t know I Haven’t seen Triple H around for a long time but it seems he‘s been working on a movie called “The Chaperone.” The other thing I noticed while watching that dismal showing of the Esks/BC game was a commercial for ABC’s new game show called “Downfall.” Downfall is hosted by none other then Chris Jericho of the WWE. Cool. The show‘s been out for a couple of weeks now. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

....continuing on from my website

as I had a decent night off. I had a bit of a nap around 6pm for an hour and played around with getting my MP3's to work in Media Monkey. MM doesn't work very well with ITunes. I tried without much success; Share Pod and I looked at Double twist and others and none of them are that good.MM wont let me download my MP3 play lists at all.

This year marks the 63rd year of the "Roswell indecent" as its known to be called. Its such a fascinating story. I also like the Phoenix lights story as well. These two stories almost make a believer out of me. Not that I believe in space aliens or anything like that.

So far not one team has picked up Oiler Sheldon Souray off of waivers. Either way he's a huge cap hit for 2 years. If he doesn't want to play here in Edmonton and if no other team claims him off waivers, Souray my find himself in the minors until his contract expires.

Space has screwed me around again with Doctor Who today. They're playing Batman and Hellboy. That's ok because the Eskimo game is on TV at 5pm and Tyler Hall the Oilers number 1 draft pick is supposed to take a bow in the stands or something.

Anyway I'm going to read for an hour and then go to bed. My wife's had this cold for the last few days, I hope I can sleep. Anyway, that's about all for now.

For once, I had a decent Friday night sleep overnight

I was listening to the last bit of the Dragon page Cover to Cover (#413A) pod cast from last week. They had guest author Larry Doyle on talking about his book and how he broke into Hollywood as a screen writer, it’s a very sobering honest informative interview. I mean its not Jake & Vienna or anything but its good stuff.

Yesterday I made a detour to my Scotia bank to make a small deposit before heading into the office. I got as many empties as I could. Seems I have a bit of competition for the empties as one of the newbie’s is stacking up a few of them on me.

I don’t ordinarily watch Smackdown on a Friday night but I was board so I turned it on and watched the whole thing. Anne made me a nice supper. I’m glad I watched the show, it was fun. I went to bed early at 12:30am listening to a bit of the Cisco Kid before passing out.

This years local Pure Speculation event will be held at the Shaw conference center October 22-24th. The GOH will be Tanya Huff. This year, Baby boomer Geek with a laptop will be there to check on some of the panel’s and other events going on. The other big convention coming up later in Toronto this August will be Fan Expo, which I’d love to go to. Victor Lucas will be there from “Reviews on the Run.” I like this guy he brings a mirthful yet fresh approach to gaming reviews. Some good things going on this summer.

This evening I’m going to buckle down with a couple of solid hours worth of writing. I don’t like how the opening to DS is working so I might just go ahead and scrap the whole thing and start from the beginning.

Sunday, I’ve got another Doctor Who episode to catch and after that it’s the first regular season game opener for the Eskimo’s CFL game. I hope its televised. Usually its on TSN. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

I had a very laid back day

and even managed to catch a bit of the Riders/Montreal CFL game earlier. Maybe I didn't have an exciting day as Tom Cruise but I did it my way.

I even managed to catch up on a bit of piano practice as well and I'm going to read a bit of "Odd girl out" before bed. Anne said I could go in at my regular time today but I've got to put some hours in next week.

It's kind of ironic that this time last year Rob called me into the office with Moe and Brendan threatening me with my job saying they want to see some improvement or they'd terminate me. Fast forward a year later and Moe & Brendan gone 4 months later followed by Rob a year later from that meeting and I'm still there. For now.

I did some work on this blog as well earlier last night fixing up the SFF authors, books, film and added more of About me in there as well.

Also I've got some new Pod-casts to listen to for over the next few days for my website as Clarkesworld, Escape pod and Mysterious Universe came in yesterday. So I've got some content for my website.

My daily diary has served me well as I wanted to find out from my November 2000 diary approximately when I moved in with Anne and it was Friday November 17th. this year is our 10th anniversary.

its good to be back in the Blogger swing of things

Ok I’ve got my old Blogger template back and with a matching URL that the feeds can recognize. Finally. Key words can be a tricky thing but one key word can make my site hits jump significantly. For example, I’ll mention Larry King, who announced that he’s going to be retiring soon. I’ll post this and by the end of the day, my page views will increase significantly.

Today’s NHL UFA day is pretty quiet. The guy I wish the Oiler’s could move would be Shawn Horcoff but as of July 2008 he signed a $33M 6 year deal with the Oiler’s. I like Horcoff but no way is he worth $33M. Whoever signed that deal ought to have had their head examined. Of course hind site is what it is, nobody realized he’s been playing like a junior over the last number of years. He’s tying up a lot of cap room. At 5.5M season, he’s hardly worth it and I’ve seen him play and no way is he worth 5.5M. Maybe 2M and this time last year the Oilers sign Khabibulin for a $15M 4 year deal and his first game in he lets in a couple of squeakers against the Flames. That’s almost $10M/year tied up in precious cap room between 2 players. Then Khabi gets injured and then Feb 17th gets a DUI charge in Phoenix and with Horcoff barely showing up and Hemsky injured and everything else that’s happened no wonder why the Oiler’s had a dismal season last year 09-10. But that season netted them the #1 draft pick. Thing is they’ve got another 3 years Khabbi and 4 years with Horcoff. But they didn’t know Khabbi would get injured as well. The Oiler’s need a competent goal tender and Marty Turco is available as an UFA the Oiler’s should sign him and let Khabbi play back up but exactly where Khabbi is health wise, I don’t know. So far the UFA day is kind of lame. The Oiler’s are trying to move Sheldon Souray who is another heavy hitter cap room wise and is an UFA and wants out of Edmonton.

It’s not like its +28 out there or anything but the people below us have a inflatable pool out back and the kids are having fun. It’s a fair size pool as well. Its only +18 out there and not a hot day for a pool party. I’m enjoying my day off. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

I had a decent night on the job

last night even though it was starting out slow. I got inside and there was nobody around. Maybe they all went for their break. So I went to collect my cans and I turned around and they all came out. I thought maybe they were all called away to give a talking to by the boss. Nope. I asked Said and he said it was because Rob had got fired. Maybe because there was a rumor going around and management had wanted to make sure that everyone got the full story. Too bad though but Rob brought it upon himself. He took the top sales staff out of the office for his own call center operation. Not good, it's the end of a era.

I got off the train and there was Anne waiting for me. She asked if I could take a bag home as she was going to Superstore for some more pop etc. I got in and tried to do a follow up on any NHL Oiler UFA moves. The frenzy begins at noon today.

Anne made me a hot hamburger on toast and mashed potato, peas.

Anyway I was able to create a 4th Blogger Blog and I discovered the new Templates. I overlooked the Template design link on the dashboard and I found my old blog layout and I changed the blog title omitting Clareview. It's now just called "Baby boomer sci-fi geek with a laptop." I've got a bit of work left to do to move a lot of things over but at least now the name wont have to be changed.

My 6/49 lotto numbers didn't come in. I got 1 number including the bonus number. I needed 2 and I would have won $5.Anyway, that's all for now.