Off today with dental pain, lucky me

Last day of a long month and it ends on one of the coldest days of the year.

Not a lot going on for today. It’s a full work day despite the weather. I powered up the computer this morning only to charge up my Itouch player. I know I can get a charger plug accessory for about $25 bucks at Future Shop.

Anne wanted me to stay home today because I'm still struggling with my dental pain. As long as I have something cold up against the tooth its fine but that's only a fleeting releif as it is. So I called in and left a message on the machine.

I got a feeling though the boss is going to have me moved back over to res this week sometime. OTH sales are down but were calling cold. If we get a sale and we’re “on the board” for the day we’re doing well. This year is slow for OTH.

So I’m home at least for tonight and we’ll wait and see what tomorrow brings. I’d rather not start res this week at all if I have to because Tuesday night the Oiler’s are hosting the Kings at Rexall. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

Saturday/Sunday

So far my soar tooth has given me a break this evening as it’s Saturday/Sunday here.

Earlier this evening (Saturday) I watched “The Dirty Dozen.” In all the 44 years this has been around, I have yet to have seen this in its entirety until this evening. I enjoyed it. On a scale from 1-10, I’d rate it a 7.5.

We tried watching the 2 Marine movies but our Xbox 360 couldn’t read the disk properly. The Xbox seems to be fine but the disk is probably so used and scratched it becomes un readable, which completely soured the experience. I’m sure it’s a good series.

All across the web and TV ads for Netflex Canada are appearing. Thing with Netflex Canada is that the choice of content isn’t anywhere near what it is in the States because of licensing agreements that kind of thing. I am in no hurry to sign up for this service. I’d rather get Xbox live then Netflex.

On local news from the All Star break skills competition our own Taylor Hall came in second as the leagues fastest skater in the rookie category. Wow. That’s awesome.

We went to bed this morning at about 4am but I had a mild headache but feel a bit better at the moment. I’ve only got half a day for Monday and I want to bring my laptop in so I can get Vinny to download that all for me but I don’t think there will be enough time to even install the disk properly for me. I might have to wait until Saturday or something. Anyway, that‘s about all for now.

Yeesh, what a day

Yikes, I missed 2 days here, hard to believe. I’ve been busy what with watching 2 Oiler games as well this week and what with yesterday being Wayne Gretzky’s birthday and all.

It’s been slow going at work as well lately. Monday I was on for only half a day and Tuesday I got only 1 sale on a card and nothing yesterday but today I got 2 sales and 1 on a card. It was tough sledding all week.

This afternoon calls were coming in very slow and the boss was out on a family emergency. So I figured, why not listen to the recent SF Signal pod cast. That is #24. The topic was judging a book by its cover and an interview with SF author Phillippa Ballentine. She‘s from New Zealand. I‘d love to retire there but they have all those earthquakes. I tried looking for her at Fantastic fiction but I couldn’t find anything.


Yesteray I got a chance to go back into FL Studio and I laid down another demo track for my version of “Louie, louie” but I’m not going to publish it or anything. Its more of a learning process then anything else. I‘m still trying to set up my Midi keyboard with the Midi audio interface but for some reason I‘m missing a few steps or not doing something right in the set up phase.

One of my co-workers and I the other day during the lunch break were talking about “Magic the gathering.” He was going to show me his card set. Apparently there are a lot of players of all ages and locations here in the City. I can see myself getting involved playing this thing. As hobbies go its not that expensive to get started. But like anything else its time consuming but I could see myself playing on a Saturday afternoon or something like that. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

the tech guy's visit was a few hours ago

from Telus over here, trying to trouble shoot our our bedroom TV pictured a couple of posts below. The TV is a 21 year old set but usually its the audio that goes first. The tech guy said if we had a couple of stereo monitors we can hook up from the PVR to the monitors that have the jack connection we would be able to get sound from the monitors and not the Tv, cool. Then I asked him about the wifi and how we can get it set up permanently on my Itouch. He showed me underneath the router and there is the wifi label and the password key. I didn't know this before. Also he gave us some friendly tips and suggestions, not to buy games from places like Walmart because they don't have a dedicated console you can open the game and see if the game works before you buy. Places like Future shop does because Fs specializes in tech and games and stuff anyway. So, we can still salvage the old Tv, I got my wifi permanently set up on my ITouch and it looks like there is a problem with the reader in our Xbox 360. I don't play a lot of games anyway on the console so the Xbox looks like its a write off. If I'm going to play games I'd rather play PC games which is why I want to upgrade my desktop. The tech support guy was a good service call this afternoon.














Yes, your looking at an image taken from our maim Tv in the front room: The time is 3:30am and the temperature for January 23rd reads +5! Right now its +3 Sunny and a lot of that ice and snow is melting.We're going to have weather above zero this week and then we drop down to -9 and even then that's not cold. A weeks worth of this kind of weather is going to melt a lot of the snow but it's going to be really problematic for residential streets.

Speaking about tech, I watched on Tv that there will be something like 350 million smart phones/pads sold for 2011 that laptops and desktops will be fading out of the marketplace. For example when the cell phone first commercially appeared in what 1981 the cell phone looked like a high tech WW2 army walkie-talkie. By 1990 cell phones were emerging into the marketplace and today almost everyone has a cell phone. But it took 30 years to get the cell phone to go from the clunky 1981 phone to the pocket Iphone 4 with full Internet capability. So don't expect the desktop/laptop to go away any time soon. Anyway, that's enough for today.

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I'm having a pretty

decent afternoon. Anne left out of here an hour ago to do some shopping. I hope she gets back soon because this will  only give her an hour to get things done before she leaves for work .



After work, James and I headed over to Wendy's as I had a craving for a baconator combo. I didn't even know this location had opened up. It's just a #2 bus ride there, not far from Future shop. So next time I have a craving for a Wendy's burger meal, I know where to go. It's easy to get to then even the one by my place.

After lunch I caught the bus back towards Corona station and I was told there were 3 of the Warhammer 40K Omnibus books waiting for me. Great. I bought one putting a nice dent in my Audrey's club membership. A few more purchases and I can get a "free" book.

Earlier today I was able to get into my Itunes account and manage and update my podcasts, saving about 2.50Gb of space off my hard drive. I had a lot of podcasts I knew I wasn't going to get to listen to, so I only took the ones for 2011.

We're going to have about 4-6 days of nice mild weather here, which I hope will melt down a lot of the snow banks that are up waist high in a lot of places. In all the 33 years here I've never seen so much snow. Well maybe in 1996.

Tonight, I'm going to do those backing vocals for Louie, Louie, watch the Oiler's game, check  on  my 6/49 ticket and that's going to be the extent of evening.

Oh on Cost last night George was saying that the of of 2012 falls on a Saturday. So, that Saturday night as we countdown a new year and the dreaded of all, 2012. LOL. Anyway, that's all for now.  

About time,were in a mild spell

We had some difficulty with our TV earlier. Our second set seems to be losing volume.



Hard to believe I’ve had this TV since 1990 and it works fine. it’s a 25” Magnavox non HDMI. It still uses AV cables no less.


Yesterday on the job I got zero sales. So did the guy beside me and DR got 1 sale near the end of the day for $50. I doubt I got over $500 in sales all week and tomorrow is half a day, then we go do Res at 12:30pm doing the same thing.


Did we ever get a warm up yesterday! We got to +3 and more of the same for today and the next couple of days and it’s going to be sunny.


Akai’s MPK49 is the MIDI controller keyboard I’m going to get. Or seems to be the one I’ve narrowed down. I wanted the Endroil PCR 500 but seems I could only get the 6100 (61 keys and I don’t need that many.) I can load all my presets into this thing, like my FL studio, Nexus 2 etc.


Sigh, the Oiler’s lost again. Our starting goaltender sucks, big time. I think his record is 8-21-3 something and that’s unacceptable. The Bullin wall, yeah right.


Today I’ve got a full day. I’ve got no books to buy or order. It’s just cash check at 4:30pm and home for the weekend. Anyway, time for bed and to watch some OTR. Anyway, that’s all for now.

not a lot going on

I left out of here shortly before 8am and had no trouble on my way into work. I got my first sale just before 10:30am break and on a card and that was it for the rest of the day. James, Bob, Dave got nothing all day. So I did slightly better then they did by at least getting on board. I mean if nobody got anything all day, what does that speak to the campaign/source we’re on?

The cordless phone was lying nearby at 3pmso seeing as how the calls were coming in slow, I called Anne and had a brief chat before she headed out to work. I hung around the office there for awhile and then headed home. I got a seat on the train all the way home and waited for a bus to come in. I thought, well if the road is going to be slippery and full of ruts out here I may as well get off over there by Sifton School and walk in North from there. It was a lot better going in because the grader had tracked on the grass making it easy for me to walk home. I got in about 5:pm!

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Anne had this “Shepherds pie” or whatever it was…uggh. I didn’t like it at all. So I had some cereal with my insulin. I was going to play around in the studio this evening but I don’t have the energy for this sort of thing right now.

At work due to the ammount of slow calls coming in, I decided to get caught up on my SF Signal podcasts. I had that in my ear on the way home and while on the #183 I met Moe, our previous room manager and we had a nice talk.

Today was kind of a lame day. Anne’s going to be home in about an hour, I’ll have a bite to eat watch the news and go to bed.

Earlier while on YouTube, I wanted to check out the various ITab type tablet PC’s out there. I kind of like Samsung’s Galaxy but its $599 on a 3 year contract. Crazy. Anyway, that’s all for now.

I got up a bit earlier then usual this morning

It’s back to work this morning for a full day. My throat still feels a little scratchy but I’m sure after a bit of coffee and a Halls on the way in, I should feel OK for the rest of the day.

So, is this a rumour or is to long awaited Elder Scrolls 5 actually out yet? Apparently the developers at Bethesda have the game under early development. Rumours about this have been going on now since last November 2010, so this is probably old news but new to me. Now if this comes out I don’t think it will be for 2011 maybe 2012. Why rush a good thing right?

They were saying last night on the news that since January 1st we had received just over 2.5 feet of snow. They say it's been the worst ammount of snow since 1974 here in Edmonton.

About 10pm Anne went to cash in on our Pizza credit from Pizza Hut. She got some good news from her sister just before I began to settle in for Monday night Raw that we thought was going to be the end of some cash flow, so we’ll be ok until I get my pension in less then 2 years. I went to bed shortly after midnight and listened to some more Old time radio, on was Abbot & Costello’s “Who’s on first” classic radio routine.

The only major bill to take care of now is my Lodge dues and Anne says, I can take care of that at the end of the month. I was considering going to our annual Robert Burns night at the Lodge but it’s a family thing, lots of wine and cheese. Most likely this thing will keep going on until after midnight, Ah, no thanks I’ll pass.

I’m up a bit earlier then usual this morning because of Transit delays and I want to get there for just about 8:15 so I can get the next station over and allow for enough time to get ready packed up and out of here.

Monday night Raw wasn’t bad. On a scale of 1-10, I’d rate it a 7.5. Good but not earth shattering/cliff-hanger ending I think they tried to deliver. I was able to do a bit more reading and I watched the news at 11pm as Anne went out to get the Pizza. Anyway, that‘s all for now.

Yeash, what a day and I'm trying to get rid of this cold and I'm out doing banking?

Last night Anne suggested I take an extra day to recover from this cold and that’s what I did. I called and left (I hope) a message on the answering machine. I hope they got it. So I slept in for 3 hours and got up at noon, had a coffee and left out of here at 1pm. This extra day off actually helped me out a lot. I feel a lot better. Anyway, my bus came right away and boarded a waiting train, only to be told by the driver that we needed to be on the next train coming in. Huh? So out one train and onto another. I was down at Bay station and the escalator wasn’t working. I caught the elevator up and out and headed East along 103rd street. I went right on 102nd then nope, not this way then left and after awhile found the bank in the Manulife building. There’s only a mall entrance in the building. I found my way in and after a brief wait, the teller couldn’t accept my ID as I only had half of the ID. It was good a few years ago when Anne’s purse got stolen with my bank card in it. So, the teller gave me a 1-800 number to call. I said, I didn’t want to cash a check or make a with drawl or anything. If anything I wanted to put money into my account but they wouldn’t let me! First time a bank ever refused money before.

Well I thought that was the end of it. I’d walk down 102nd to jasper Ave and take the Central Station train home. Then I got the idea to go to my main branch and I explained to the reception. I got into see a teller showed her my old Id and explained I know my pin I want to put funds in to cover service charges and get a replacement card. She verified my address and set me up. I left funds to cover a negative balance and enough for 3 service charges later and a replacement card to my address in about 2 weeks. Now why couldn’t the other RBC bank do that?

I went and waited for the first train, which was jammed packed. There must have been about 6 cars. I waited for half an hour later and got another not so crowded train. With all the snow out there over the last 10 days (37 Cm-2.5 feet) it was really slippery out there to say the lest. But I’m glad I made the trip and got my bank account restored. What I like about my RBC bank is I can deposit a check at the ATM and withdraw immediately after. I can’t do that at my Scotia bank, yet. I feel a lot better not only about taking the day off but I got something accomplished as well at the same time. Anyway, that‘s all for now.

I'm recovering from a cold type thing this weekend

cold kind of a day today. I had a decent day today even though I didn’t venture outside to go anywhere.

Most of the day was spent reading “The Automatic Detective,” which I finished earlier Saturday evening. So here’s a brief “review:”

*****/5 Stars

Synopsis: Our hero of this tale is a robot cabbie named Mac. Mac Megaton’s friends and neighbours (The Bleakers) have been kidnapped. The story is a delightful romp through the City as Mac tries to find his friends and finds himself in an alien conspiracy in the process.

Pros: Strong character development in a nice mix of techno jargon that isn’t over the top. World building is handled expertly and the narrative flow is fast paced.

Cons: The villains could have been made more threatening to the MC‘s supporting cast. The supporting cast didn’t have enough substance in them for me to care about.

Bottom line: This was a fun read and might just be the best book that I’ve read this year. It’s impression will be with me for a long time.

We have a few more days of this cold snap to contend with. So far this winter we've had about 50 Cm of snow, which is roughly about 2 feet. We begin to warm up here in a few days. Hopefully this next warming trend will be with us until at least the end of the month. I love winter and the snow, makes us appreciate Spring, summer, fall. I grew up in the lower mainland in the 1960's and '70's and for the most part we got very little snow, if any. I recall maybe once growing up 1970 ish when we actually had a good dump of snow on Regan Ave at the old place. I like winter, I just don't like severe winter.

Now I'm right in the first 10 pages of reading Alastair Reynolds "Pushing Ice." It's a big book and I don't think I'll have it read until about the end of February if that, what with all the work I have to do at the Lodge coming up in February. It's work I want to do anyway.

I haven't been doing so good at the job lately though since I got that $1800 banner ad cold sale on the card, last Wednesday. Thursday I got nothing and Friday I got nothing. My commission on the banner ad though is supposed to be nice. I'll believe it when I see it. That sale was the largest single card sale I have ever got in all my 10 years where I work.

I'm not one for Vampire movies but after seeing the trailer for "Priest" yesterday afternoon on Attack of the Show, this looks really good. I think its supposed to be coming out in May of this year. There are other trailers on YouTube. Priest is a science fiction, fantasy, martial arts, horror, type movie. This is one movie, I want to see this summer.

I haven't heard anything yet about Matt Smith and new Doctor Who episodes for 2011 but I imagine they are in production and I hope they keep the whole production team from last season. "Discovering" Doctor Who last year was one of the best things about 2010. When I can I also like to watch the previous Doctor before Smith, David Tennant. I wish I would have discovered the Doctor back then. It's great science fiction, I love it.

Coast (as usual on a Saturday night) has another boring topic but I think I have a new SF Signal Post I can listen to to fill in on these Saturday nights when Coast to Coast has lame Ian Punnet topics. Sorry Ian but your shows are lame. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Its been a long week

Yesterday and today, I caught the flu. My head and shoulders, heck my whole body aches. My sinuses are plugged up, the whole 9 yards. I didn’t through up yet though. I’ve got 31.5 hours in this week so I can’t complain. Because I’m ill, Anne wants me to come in for just half a day today.

I’ll take her up on the offer. I have a couple of errands to take care of first: I have to cash my check at Scotia, take the #1 bus to City Center mall area, well a block South of that to the RBC bank and try and get my replacement card going. They’ll give me a replacement card because I’m going to owe service charges for 2 months. I’d feel a lot better getting that cleared up. I\ve had that account since 1978 and I don’t want to lose it. It’s always good to have 2 bank accounts going

Finally, the Oiler’s won one in SJ last night, 5-2. If it was NK in net, we would have lost. He lets in 2 many soft goals. The officiating was still a little questionable. They let a lot of things slide. But 5-2 isn’t bad. The Leafs lost which I like ending their 4 game winning streak so JT can stop his gloating now.

I’ve been trying to find time to finish reading my book but haven’t had much luck. We’re still gripped by this cold snap but we’re going to warm up next weekend to about -7, which is a lot better. Anyway, that’s all for now.

I haven't been in here lately

because I had temporarily lost my Google accounts. Seems since I've been away, Blogger has added a few things.


But if you have been here before,I hope you have found my link to my website and that's where my main blogging activity is anyway. I'm considering using Blogger as a bit of "The best of the week" type thing. It's a filler for my website as I don't want to give up on Blogger altogether because I like using it. 


While my main blogging activity is on my website, I'll be making "The gist of the day," scenes, so you'll get an idea of the larger expanded view/rant whatever here. I'm going to be utilizing this daily but photos etc will be on the website.   


Sorry about the absence, that's all for now.

Jim