Antoine: 2004 (?) - 2009

Posted by Office-Bob on 29 Jun 2009 | Tagged as: Uncategorized

Enough time has passed for me to be able to put this in words.

After the sudden death of Max I was between pets and was looking for another rabbit, so in the fall of 2004 I went to the Vancouver SPCA to see what bunnies they had. I had a few specific things I was looking for: I didn’t want a lop or a dwarf, and I wanted a larger rabbit with big ears.

After looking around I found a brown rabbit of unknown pedigree named Antonia; she needed a home so I “borrowed” her for a week to make sure we were a good fit. After the week had gone by I was sure I wanted her so I filled out the paperwork and she was mine.

When you get a shelter animal you’re expected to have them spayed or neutered if it hasn’t already been done, so I made an appointment with the vet to have her spayed. When I went to pick her up after surgery the vet asked me into his office and informed me that it wasn’t until they’d opened her up that they noticed that not only didn’t she have any girl bits, she’d never had any– she was a neutered male. So much for assuming the shelter staff knew how to check a rabbit’s sex.

Anyway, from that point on Antonia was known as Antoine.

My rabbits have tended to have unusual names such as Judah Bun-Hur, “KISS’s Toblerone” (the pedigree name of Toby), Chip (so called because he had a piece missing from one ear, the result of a difficult birth), and Max (named after one of the characters in the Sam and Max Computer game series). Antoine’s full name was:

“Louisiana Back Bay Bayou Bunny Bordelais, a la Antoine.”

(Yeah, I like Bugs Bunny cartoons – so sue me)

I’m sure unnecessary surgery didn’t improve his disposition any, but Antoine was always a bit of a cranky fellow. He never bit, but he certainly didn’t like it when you made sudden moves around him – rabbits are prey animals but I’ve been around enough of them to know that his reactions were a bit more pronounced than usual. While I don’t know for sure, my guess is that he was either a school pet or kept by kids who would poke him through the bars of his cage.

Still, Antoine settled into our lives and made himself at home. Even though he was never a snuggle bunny you could tell that he enjoyed being petted because he’d get up from wherever he was watching the world go by and come over to pester you when he felt you weren’t giving him the proper amount of attention. He especially enjoyed having his ears lightly stroked and strangely enough, if you scratched his butt he’d start reflexively licking the floor.

Everything was going well until a few weeks ago when he stopped eating. In rabbits this is Not A Good Thing and we started taking steps to resolve the problem; things seemed to be improving when he suddenly took a turn for the worse.

I was downstairs with him when he suddenly hopped upstairs to visit my wife (she said he ran around and binkied a couple of times) and as he came downstairs I heard a loud thump as if he’d lost his balance and fallen. I found him lying at the bottom of the stairs, breathing heavily, and before I could do anything he had what appeared to be a heart attack and died.

I think he knew his time was coming and he wanted to say goodbye before he went, which is why he went upstairs that one last time.



Good bye, Antoine. I miss you.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Return of the Stoupie, this time enriched with “WTF?”

Posted by Office-Bob on 15 Jun 2009 | Tagged as: General Craziness

As you’ll recall from our previous episode, I was getting irate calls from Crazy Missouri Woman who was convinced that I’d been calling her and hanging up. I flagged her number with a specific ringtone and added her to my “special” contact list so I’d know when she was calling. Last week she called a couple of times but I didn’t answer, and she didn’t leave any new rants on my voicemail.

Well, she just called again.

I’d decided that the next time she called I’d answer, if for no other reason that to make her pay long distance charges. I picked up the call and readied myself for some ranting and raving, only to be subjected to the most awful, hideous, totally polite phone call I’d ever received.

0_o

I said hello and she asked me if my number was for a residence. I told her that she was calling a cellphone and she said she’d been trying to track down who was prank-calling her; when I told her I was in Canada she sounded genuinely shocked. I then told her that I had no idea why her call display was showing my number when she was sure the calls were coming from Florida (I have no idea why she was sure of that, unless it was because the person she suspected of making the calls lived there) but that I was not calling her. She said that she was calling the numbers back to confirm them and was then going to forward everything to the Missouri Attorney General. I told her that if they wanted my cellphone records they could subpoena them and that I wished her luck in her efforts, at which point she thanked me and when I told her to have a nice day she said, “You too, sweetheart” and hung up.

Ooooooookay…let’s recap:

Originally she called to scream at me, accuse me of prank-calling her and call me a liar when I denied it, and she left 2 voicemails calling me a bitch and saying she’d reported “me” to the state AG. This time she was polite, willing to listen and (apparently) believe me when I told her that I wasn’t the person calling her, and that was that. Oh, and apparently she hadn’t contacted the AG’s office yet, despite what she’d said 2 weekends ago.

I can think of a few reasons why this occurred, but as I am not any sort of therapist or substance abuse professional (either for use or treatment) I won’t list the possibilities; I’m sure y’all can come up with them on your own.

If she calls again, and if she’s nice again, I will have to try very hard not to say, “You know, I think I liked you better when you were screaming at me…it made for better press.”

Popularity: 5% [?]

Ode to the “Stoupies”

Posted by Office-Bob on 09 Jun 2009 | Tagged as: General Craziness

This past weekend I went to Victoria to check out the British Museum traveling exhibit and on Saturday, while I was enjoying some ice cream (peanut butter chocolate), my cell phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, an 816 area code, but I decided to answer it anyway because it was a sunny day, I was in a good mood and I figured I might be able to have some fun with a telemarketer.

Alas, this was not to be.

The woman on the other end asked me why I kept calling her and hanging up; I replied that I had not been calling her (I hadn’t) and that, despite what her call display was telling her, she was mistaken. After trying to point out that technology isn’t infallible, she called me a liar and hung up on me, so I shrugged and wrote it off as one of those strange things that happen.

Then my phone rang again…same person. I let it go to voicemail.

A few minutes later, another call from her…again, I let it go to voicemail.

I listened to the messages later; the first one was a threat to go to the Missouri Attorney General on Monday to report my harassment and ended with her calling me “Bitch.” The second message was to tell me that she’d contacted the Missouri AG (Hey, Missouri residents, congratulations on having state officials that work weekends) and reported me, and that I’d better have deep pockets because I was gonna be paying a lot of money in damages. She signed off again with “Bitch.”

After those two calls I didn’t hear back from Crazy Missouri Woman (hereafter referred to as CMW) until testerday afternoon, when she called me again. I let the call go to voicemail again but this time, instead of ranting at me, she hung up without saying a word.

Ooooh, psychological warfare! You know, I was really hurt that I didn’t get called “Bitch” again. Where did I go wrong?

She then called a second time, this time without leaving any message at all.

Great, I have a groupie. Not only that, I have a stupid groupie. Okay, from now on I’m going to refer to this particular sort of person as a “stoupie.”

This isn’t my first brush with stoupies; some months ago I was getting calls from a woman (different state - sorry, Missouri, you don’t have the market on stoupies) who was insisting that I either had someone else’s phone or I was the person she wanted to talk to and just wouldn’t admit it…she was somewhat incoherent so I couldn’t be 100% sure which it was. I ended up creating a special contact in my address book for that particular number and assigning it a special ringtone so I’d know when she was calling but of course, after I did that, she stopped. After the Monday calls, I added CMW’s number to that contact so I’d know when she decides, if ever, to bother me again.

To commemorate this moment in my life, and in the spirit of Canadian Content, I have decided to adapt a classic rock ditty to suit my particular situation:

MISSOURI WOMAN (with apologies to The Guess Who)

Missouri Woman
Stop calling me
Missouri Woman
This is just crazy

Don’t believe your call display
‘cause I didn’t call your phone today
I got more important things to do
Than waste my time prank-callin’ you

Now woman
Stop causin’ strife
Missouri Woman
Better get a life

You threaten that you’re gonna sue
But good luck ‘cause I’m well North of you
I don’t think your state A.G.
is gonna waste time on Canadian me
Your voicemail rants are really rich
Especially when you call me “bitch”

Hey Woman
Stop calling me
Missouri Woman
This is just crazy

You’re now calling me and wasting money
By hanging up – and I think it’s funny
‘cause I gave you a special ringtone
so I know it’s you when you call my phone
Go ahead and waste your time
If the call goes through - hey, it’s on your dime

Hey woman
What’s with the attack
Missouri Woman
Do ya need Prozac?

Popularity: 6% [?]

Open Letter to a well-known “houseguest”

Posted by Office-Bob on 22 Apr 2009 | Tagged as: General Craziness

I know this is going to be hard to hear; please believe me when I tell you that I thought long and hard about whether or not I should tell you exactly how I feel. Still, sometimes we have to do the hard things even when we don’t want to.

Consider this an intervention.

I know things have been hard for you since you were injured while serving in the military. A lot of people forgot about you and you might have simply faded away, no one being the wiser, until Ben found you and invited you to help him at his place of employment. The work invigorated you and soon you were popping up all over town, being your usual noisy self, making people sit up and take notice whenever you appeared.

After a while it became almost a requirement to invite you; no matter where we went, you were there waiting for us – sometimes hiding in the background while trying not to draw attention to yourself, other times almost demanding that we notice you. “Here I am,” your presence seemed to cry out. “Aren’t I wonderful?”

Like any houseguest, though, eventually your “staying power” went from quirk, to minor annoyance, to aggravation…and a lot of us who used to eagerly wait for you to show up now began to dread running into you.

I’d been meaning to tell you how I felt for some time now, but the final straw was when I noticed you were hogging the limelight in a British TV show I was watching – and not being content with the occasional scene, you were often showing up multiple times in the same episode.

That’s when I knew I had to say something.

You need to learn from the experiences of our mutual friend Alan – He overstayed his welcome, became the butt of countless jokes and finally, when his antics were too obnoxious to be ignored anymore, he was fired. I’m not sure if anyone in his professional circle knows where he is now and, honestly, I don’t know if anyone really cares.

I’d like to see you leave gracefully before that happens to you; by leaving on your own terms perhaps you can make people forget how overexposed you’ve become and then, at some point in the future, you will be welcomed back with open arms. We will miss you, of course, but if you stick around much longer some of us – including me - may actually come to loathe you. Do you really want that? I don’t think you do.

Goodbye and good luck, Wilhelm. Take care, and perhaps we’ll meet again in the future.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Farewell to my red plastic friend, a sacrifice on the altar of the Church of Caffeine

Posted by Office-Bob on 19 Apr 2009 | Tagged as: General Craziness

A little over a year ago I was asked to do a presentation for an Event Planner course at the Art Institute of Vancouver; when I was finished, they gave me a travel mug as a gesture of appreciation.

It was one of the better mugs I’ve had over the years; the lid was a simple twist open/closed with no springs or hinges to break, and the metal liner meant that while it didn’t keep my coffee as hot as a vacuum mug would, it kept it warm enough.

Not too long ago I noticed a sloshing noise that would occur after I’d dumped out my old coffee and rinsed out the mug; I didn’t pay it any mind until recently when I realized what had happened – somehow, the seam between the metal liner and plastic shell had opened, however slightly, and it was allowing liquid to get inside the mug.

If I were someone who drank his coffee black this might have been acceptable but I use cream and sugar, so some of that mixture was getting in there. Have you ever left a mug of coffee with cream and sugar sitting for a day or two and gotten a whiff? It’s not all that pleasant and now I noticed that my red travel mug, a gift from the AI students, smelled the same way.

I decided that I was going to have to say goodbye to the mug.

Thus began the search for a new mug to use at my desk. I knew that as nice as the AI mug was I wouldn’t be getting that particular style again because I didn’t want to have to be constantly wondering when the new one was going to develop a leak between the walls.

I was in Costco recently and saw they had a 2-pack of Contigo Autoseal vacuum mugs; I’d heard good things about them and decided to give them a try and I have found what is possibly, for me, the perfect travel mug – it’s metal with no gaps for gunk to collect, it’s double-walled and the vacuum insulation keeps my coffee hot, and the lid is leakproof (so far) so I don’t have to worry if I accidentally knock it over.

Now if I could just get people at work to make a fresh pot of coffee when they take the last cup, life would be almost complete.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Here comes the 2010 ticket tape parade…

Posted by Office-Bob on 03 Jan 2009 | Tagged as: General Craziness, The Church of Pyro

I decided to put in a ticket request for the 2010 Winter Olympics – personally I can take or leave live sports, and I’m hoping to be doing pyro during the Games which would keep me from attending any events, but since this is one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities (since the rest of our lifetimes will be spent paying off the Olympic-sized debt we’ll be stuck with) I thought I’d give it a shot.

Since my brother-in-law and his wife are into curling and I’ve also been known to watch it from time to time, my wife and I decided that we’d order tickets for some of the qualifying and semi-final rounds…between not asking for medal round tickets and the fact that curling isn’t as popular as hockey or skating, we figured our chances of being awarded tickets during the lottery period were higher.

We got tickets, but not exactly what we’d ordered. More on that in a moment.

When I placed my ticket request I also ordered some official Vancouver 2010 Ticket Lanyards (complete with souvenir pin) because hey, who doesn’t want to be able to display their precious Olympic tickets around their neck? I don’t know when tickets will be printed and shipped but I’ve already received the lanyards and pins, and I noticed a couple of things.

First, take a close look at the pin itself:



To me, it looks like Quatchi and Miga are saying, “HEY, BITCHES, WE GOT TICKETS AND YOU DIDN’T!”

Just the thing to wear in public…stay classy, VANOC.

Second, look at the back of the pin:



What’s the point of making the pin back in the shape of a maple leaf, especially when production was outsourced to China? I don’t think Chinese factory workers are going to be feeling any sense of Canadian pride, particularly about something that the average person won’t even see.

The True North, strong and free made by the lowest bidder.

Regarding the tickets themselves, consider the following:

Me, wife, brother-in-law and BIL’s wife makes 4 people. We ordered 3 different sets of 4 tickets, one set for each specific round, and we listed alternate events in case we couldn’t get our first request for a total possible of 12 tickets. Seems reasonable to assume we could get 4 tickets for one event, no?

Er, no.

By the time the dust had settled and the tickets were allocated, we ended up with 6 tickets in total…2 tickets each for 3 different events, with each event on a different day (at least 2 of the 3 events are happening in the same week; the third takes place a week later).

4 people total, 2 tickets per event…you do the math.

Right now we’re waiting to hear from the BIL which set(s) he wants and once that’s taken care of we’ll figure out how to handle the rest. As I said, I hope to be working the Games and if I am, we may have a ticket or two to dispose of - but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I will say that the hologram on the back of the pin card is really neat…it shows the Olympic Games logo when you hold it upright, but turn it on its side and you can see the Paralympic Games logo.

Let’s hear it for modern technology!

Popularity: 30% [?]

Aw, isn’t that sweet…Big Brother gave me a present!

Posted by Office-Bob on 01 Jan 2009 | Tagged as: General Craziness

I went to the local postal outlet to pick up a registered letter that required a signature; I wasn’t sure what it might be but when I saw that it was from the Canada Border Services Agency I remembered that the NEXUS program was issuing new cards.

Here is a picture of my old card (at the top) and the new one (below):



I find it interesting that they made the card itself look fancier while taking a perfectly ugly ID photo (taken with a handheld webcam by a DHS employee) and managing to make it look even worse - I guess Paul Simon was correct when he sang that “…everything looks worse in black and white.”

On the new card you can barely make out the security hologram that makes the picture even harder to see; within the lovely curlicues it has a plane, boat and car to show, I suppose, that it’s good for all modes of cross-border travel. While I can’t be sure, I’m guessing that the gold globe in the upper-right corner of the card is where the RFID chip is located – after all, we want to know where to aim the hammer when we smash the chip*, don’t we?

Included with my new NEXUS card was its own personal Trusted Traveler Card Condom:



This is to keep bad guys from reading information off the chip, even though the only thing stored on the card is an identifying code that is used to bring up the data from a central database on the computers used by the DHS/CBP folks and trust us, it’s really secure and nobody can get your data but be sure to keep the card in the sleeve when it’s not in use okay? Thank you, citizen, and here are your papers.

There was also a letter stating that the card must be activated within 30 days or “YOUR TRUSTED TRAVELLER BENEFITS MAY BE INTERRUPTED,” which sounds rather ominous. Fortunately, activation is easy (yay!); all you have to do is log onto the GOES website (boo!) and activate your card there except on the GOES home page there’s a message that card activation is experiencing difficulties and they expect it to be available by 1/5/09 (sigh).

Even if they hadn’t told me to keep my old NEXUS card until the new one is activated, I’d be doing so – after all, every now and again there’s a chance that something the government does gets messed up.
Continue Reading »

Popularity: 38% [?]

REEFER MADNESS: THE NEXT (DE)GENERATION

Posted by Office-Bob on 31 Dec 2008 | Tagged as: General Craziness

Turner Classic Movies, aka TCM, runs a series called “TCM Underground” late Friday night where they show old cult movies - some good, some bad, and some that are all sorts of messed up. Today I’m going to be discussing a movie that falls into this last category…a badly-made anti-drug propaganda piece called BLOOD FREAK.
Poster boy for drug abuse

I’m not sure where to begin, so I’ll start by introducing you to the co-directors, Steve Hawkes and Brad F. Grinter. Hawkes plays Herschel, our dashing hero who, since he’s a Vietnam vet, is sure to not have an easy time of it. Here we see Herschel with Angel, a young woman who he meets after helping her with her car:



Grinter serves as the narrator who pops in from time to time, reading from his script (no cue cards for this bad boy!) and chain smoking (which becomes a plot point later on, so pay attention):



Herschel may have met Angel by helping her with her car, but then he meets Angel’s sister, the lovely yet wicked CharacterwhosenameIdon’tremember, and must choose between two women. Is it because CharacterwhosenameIdon’tremember is willing to put out, is it because Angel is a Bible-quoting Jesus freak, or could it be a little of both? Who will win?



Yeah, I’d have gone with the drugged-up bimbo too, especially after she flaunted her bikini-clad body in front of me and got me to smoke some pot.

Anyway, Herschel is looking for a job and Angel puts him in touch with a mutual friend who runs a turkey farm and needs an assistant…

(Go ahead and think back to that Sarah Palin turkey-pardoning video; I’ll wait.)

…and while doing errands is introduced to the farm’s resident lab rats who ask him if he’s willing to take part in some human trials for drugs that they’re feeding the turkeys - if he does, they’ll also get him all the drugs he can ingest!



Herschel agrees and is told to come back the next day and “bring his appetite,” so he goes back to CharacterwhosenameIdon’tremember’s place and starts having the shakes…I guess the pot he smoked before going to bed with CharacterwhosenameIdon’tremember must have been some really strong shit because the only way for him to deal with the withdrawal symptoms is, you guessed it…smoke more pot!



(In case you’re wondering, his hands aren’t made up for the scene - apparently Steve Hawkes did have burn scars in real life though I don’t know if he got them in Vietnam or not.)

Herschel goes back to the turkey farm the next day and devours an entire roast turkey (I’ll spare you pictures of that) and goes into convulsions; the lab rats panic and dump his body in the Middle of Nowhere (conveniently located just off the freeway at Exit 142…come on by! Free ice cream and hot dogs for the kiddies!) and leave him to do whatever it is Vietnam vets who take part in drug trials do.

Well, in this movie they turn into turkey-headed mutants who drink the blood of addicts to quench their evil thirst for drugs!



Yes, he looks like a deranged cousin of Sam the Eagle from The Muppet Show.

No, I am not making this shit up.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a clip showing Herschel draining and drinking the blood of a young woman (who’s nice enough to position herself on the ladder she’s draped over) while another woman sees him and screams in endless, repetitive, looped horror!

If one bad instance of looped screaming weren’t bad enough, there’s also a scene where our “hero” uses a table saw to cut off the leg of a drug dealer who then has to spend an eternity screaming the same scream over and over and over and over (OKAY, WE GET IT!) and over and over (I SAID, WE GET IT ALREADY!) until he dies.

In the meantime, CharacterwhosenameIdon’tremember sends a couple of her druggie friends out to find Herschel because, even though she knows what he looks like, she still loves him and wants to wait and see if the mutation will wear off - once the friends find Herschel they’ll bring him back so they can keep him safe while feeding him more drugs to prevent his withdrawal symptoms. Gee, what great friends Herschel has!

After a few more scenes of blood-drinking frivolity, Herschel is found by those druggies - but instead of helping him to safety they decapitate him! Well, I’m assuming they decapitate him because even though the scene is badly shot (like the rest of this steaming pile of turley droppings), we’re treated to the following:

  • A shot of the mutant turkey head on the ground
  • A clip of a decapitated turkey thrashing around - I’m not kidding, it’s footage of a real turkey flopping around with no head
  • A shot of the real turkey’s head on the ground
  • The piece de resistance, a shot of a roast turkey being torn apart and eaten while “Herschel’s” head sits on the table next to it.


  • Between you and me, I’m guessing that the two roast turkeys were the biggest budget expense for this production.

    Finally, Herschel comes out of his drug-induced hallucination and realizes that in fact, the worst thing he’s done lately was to be involved with this waste of film (and turkey) stock. He’s found by the owner of the turkey farm and the two engage in a stirring dialog about drug abuse.

    (If you listen carefully to what Herschel says, it’s clear that he wasn’t doing anything other than pot at the time, therefore it was a combination of pot and drug-laced turkey meat that caused the hallucinations, therefore POT IS BAD, MMMKAY?)

    Angel comes to get Herschel and take him to the drug treatment centre she works at (how interesting, especially considering that Angel can’t get her sister CharacterwhosenameIdon’tremember to stop smoking pot), She convinces Herschel to try to regain his faith because as we all know, religion solves everything…he goes along with her and prays right there in the car where anybody can drive by and see it happen!



    Angel tells Herschel that despite CharacterwhosenameIdon’tremember getting him hooked on pot (?!?), she does love him and is sorry this happened. At this point we’re sent back to the narrator for the moral of the story, which is the basic “the body is a temple so be careful what you put in it” spiel…but as you watch the last part of the narration ask yourself this: Is this intentional irony, or were they just too cheap to reshoot the scene?

    That smirk at the end always kills me.

    The “happy ending” consists of Herschel and CharacterwhosenameIdon’tremember meeting on a pier and joining in a romantic embrace. They smile, they kiss…

    …and then I’ll bet they went and scored more pot.

    Popularity: 29% [?]

    Snowmaggedon? Snowpocalypse? Snow problem! (UPDATED 12/21/08)

    Posted by Office-Bob on 20 Dec 2008 | Tagged as: General Craziness

    Usually, the Greater Vancouver region doesn’t get a lot of snow and when we do get snowed on, it doesn’t stick around too long because it is washed away by rain in a day or two. This year, however, we’ve received a fair bit (for us) of the white stuff and it’s cold enough (as in “Kee-kee” weather) that it’s still here.

    I live in Port Moody so my typical workday commute consists of driving from here, through Burnaby, into downtown Vancouver; reverse that route for the trip home.

    Vancouver is usually pretty good at plowing, salting and sanding, but I’ve noticed that Burnaby isn’t always as on-the-ball as they could be when it comes to handling snow; my usual route involves taking Barnet Hwy. (which turns into Hastings St.) and you can usually tell when you reach the Burnaby city limits because you’ll go from decent roads (PoMo) to questionable roads (Burnaby) and back to decent again (Vancouver) - this depends on how soon you’re on the road after the snow starts to fall but you get the idea. My theory is that Burnaby is pissed off that so many of us don’t actually live or work there but just use their roads, and they’re trying to discourage us by making the road quality suck.

    Anyway.

    Where I live there’s one hill that is a bitch to get up (going home) or down (leaving home) when it’s covered in snow; you can be the most responsible driver in the world but still be at the mercy of local snow removal and while Port Moody is awesome when it comes to snow removal it does take them time to get to everybody, and side streets are going to be lower on the priority list. We won’t discuss snow/ice removal within my townhouse complex, however, unless you feel like hearing me bitch about breaking my leg and screwing up my ankle 8 years ago (December 18th, in fact) because of how it’s (not) handled.

    We started getting snow this past Wednesday and I went home at noon that day (I work in downtown Vancouver) because, while Vancouver itself wasn’t that bad, I knew “my” hill was going to be a bitch and I didn’t feel like having to find a place to leave my car and walk 15 or more minutes uphill just to get home. My boss was okay with that…however, while I’m fortunate to be able to work from home if necessary I still would have left early even if I couldn’t telecommute.

    The trip home took a little over an hour - about twice as long as it usually would at that time of day without bad weather.

    I did make it up the hill, barely (thank goodness for FWD and manual transmission), and this is what it looked like outside when I got home:



    Bear in mind that depending on where you are this could be a lot, or not much snow - it’s all relative, of course, but considering the driving skills of the average Vancouverite this is definitely enough to cause havoc.

    I worked from home on Thursday because I wasn’t sure when PoMo would make it to “my” hill; sometime between then and Friday morning the hill was plowed and salted so I went into the office on Friday and all was well, although the trip home was another long one because of two broken water mains that just happened to be along two of the main routes through Burnaby (I’m not blaming them for this, shit happens) which required some convoluted rerouting to get past them.

    One very curious thing I’ve noticed is that most* of the drivers I’ve encountered on the road have been driving responsibly - decreased speed, increased distance between vehicles, no sudden turns, and so forth.

    Even if I hadn’t been able to work remotely I might have stayed home, but in that case I’d have walked (very carefully!) down to the hill and checked to see if it was drivable before making the call.

    We’re supposed to be getting more snow this weekend and then possibly have rain/snow mix on Tuesday.

    Christmas should be…interesting. Oh well, Shaw has the “Holiday Fireplace” on channel 1 and I’ve got the fixings for Hot Buttered Rums. If we do get another dump of snow I’ll update this entry with additional pictures.

    Dec. 21 UPDATE: Here’s a picture of my deck from this morning; you can see how much has fallen since last night (the lower part of the railing, which I’d cleared before bed last night)…

    …and here’s a movie taken at the same time through my office window.


    Happy Holidays, everybody!

    Continue Reading »

    Popularity: 30% [?]

    Can I get the baked beans without the SPAM?

    Posted by Office-Bob on 09 Dec 2008 | Tagged as: Uncategorized

    Dear Carolina Marino, also known as
    linda2008@canada.com
    :

    Starting 4 days ago you’ve been sending spam to one of our company email addresses with the subject line of TRUST IN THE LORD and in the body of the email the word “NULL.”

    I won’t get into a religious discussion over your message content (though I think “NULL” is apt), but I wanted to take a few minutes to express my extreme annoyance with receiving the same piece of spam once every 5 minutes. I’m thinking there’s one of two possibilities here:

    1) Since the email address doesn’t “match” the sender name, it’s some sort of fake account set up for whatever reason;

    2) Your email address has been hijacked by a spambot.

    I don’t know which and frankly, I really don’t care. I’ll discuss this with our IT people to see if we can’t get the spam filter tweaked but in the meantime, I’m placing your name and email address here in the hopes the various spiders/bots/harvesters that work the Web will pick them up and put you on all sorts of spam lists, so you know the joy I’m going through.

    After all, the Golden Rule says to do unto others as you would have them do unto you…and Carolina/Linda, you started it.

    Popularity: 31% [?]

    - Next »