A Non-Work Post

So, I looked at my blog today and saw that the last post I made was a soliciatation for work. I hate putting those things up... it's like my work life intruding into my personal life. So, what better way to get rid of it than to make a new post?

So, what to write about? I notice the last time I mentioned Weight Watchers was back in March when I wrote how I had gained 10 pounds since getting off the program. Well, to bring you up to date on that... add another 10 pounds. The first 10 wasn't so bad, but the second 10... well, things just aren't fitting again. So, starting yesterday, I'm making a conscience effort to eat within my point target without having to go to an actual meeting. Yesterday was a success, but today the hunger pains (and when I say "pains" I mean "minor discomfort") are out in full force. My goal is to see if I can get to the end of the week staying on the program... and then we'll see from there.

Need Some Extra Cash? Want To Survey?

Hey everyone,

We're doing travel surveys on Highway 26 up in and around Collingwood for the next couple weeks here at work. As usual, we're tight on staff (tight as in we're short). So anyone who want to spend a few (around 6 or 7) hours doing some short travel survey/interviews and make $15/hour doing so, let me know and I'll get you in touch with the appropriate people. Gord, I think, can vouch to how easy and straightforward the interviewing is. There are, however, a couple catches... First, we need people for the morning shifts (5:30am start on weekdays, 8:00am start on Sundays). Second, you'd be responsible to getting yourself to the sites, so it'd be a bit of a drive. The surveys will run on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays for 2 weeks and then just Sundays after that. If it sounds like something you'd like to do, like I said, let me know.

Before Friday.

(Sponsor Name) (Race Title), Baby!

Today was the Molson Indy Steelback Grand Prix Honda Indy Toronto. For something different, I watched the race with my Dad from the comfort of my parents' living room this year. Maybe it was getting used to the year off last year, or maybe a lingering bitterness at the Indy Racing League's buyout of Champ Car, or maybe a lack of a full-time ride for Paul Tracy or Alex Tagliani (and therefore, much less change of a good result for the Canadians) but we decided not to trek up to Garbage City this year.

A couple things I noted:

• Both PT and Tag ran really well... 1-2 at one point. It looked good for both of them until Helio Castro Neves took out Paul and Alex tried a bit too hard to make a pass, ending his day.
• Hearing the crowd boo the crap out of Castro Neves was beyond great. The guy didn't quite know how to handle it.
• They really cut the number of stands significantly from years past. To their credit, it kept the stands they did have full.
• Franchitti won... meh.
• For people who say that Indy Cars and Champ Cars were the same thing... let me first point out the difference in the engine sounds. Sure, I have an obvious bias here, but the cars there this year don't sound nearly as sweet.

Indy Car has some evolving to do before I become half the fan I was of Champ Car. With Tony George "stepping down" as ringleader, it'll be interesting to see what happens. It's just too bad that didn't happen before he wrote his cheque to kill Champ Car.

Genius? or Smart Kid on the Short Bus?

If you caught my facebook status yesterday, you'd have seen that I placed 5th in just over 1000 people in the Canadian edition of 1 vs 100 Extended Play on XBox Live. Well, tonight I did a bit better... First place, baby! That was even after missing the first question due to logging on late and getting 2 easy questions wrong early on because I was chatting to Joe about his bad blind date. Not that it means much... there's no prizes given away for Extended Play, but it's still kinda cool.

The Canadian edition is a special one tacked on at the end or beginning of each night of 1v100 where only Canadians answer Canada specific question. Now, the rest of the night is open to Canada and the US and it's general trivia. The number of players on those games is much higher (at it's peak it was up to 100,000 but it's settled down to about 20,000 for tonight) and good luck getting anywhere near the leaderboard. So, the Canada game is only for Canadians who've stuck around and haven't logged off yet.

But still, winning is fun.

Now the Live version of 1 vs 100 plays like the actual game show, and it's quite a bit different to watch/play. But it's only on Friday and Saturday nights. So, if you have an XBox 360 (and really, when was the last time you even touched that Wii?) and like trivia, give it a go.

Cedar Point 2009

A week ago I got back from my most recent trip to Cedar Point. There were no new rides this year, but obviously there's still lots to do. We went on Saturday, did the starlight ticket, then 2 full day tickets on the Sunday and Monday. It had rained on Saturday, so by the time we got there the crowds were not very big. On Sunday, it was ridiculously not busy, and most rides had short lines. Strangely enough, Monday was much busier than Sunday. I had thought we went early enough in the year so weekdays would have low attendance. I had noticed the same phenomenon last year (although we went 2 week later), with Monday being more busy than Sunday. Next year, I think I want to try and do an even earlier trip.

So, here's the breakdown of this year's awesome trip: 3 times on Millenium Force (once at the front), 3 times on Top Thrill Dragster (once at front), 2 times on Raptor (once at front), 2 times on Maverick (once at front), twice on Wicked Twister, Magnum XL200, Mean Streak (twice too many), Power Tower and Sky Hawk. The others we only got on once. Also, I had a blast playing Deal or No Deal in the arcade and came home with a spiffy mug.

Rock Band Library

So, I was thinking about how much my Rock Band library has grown since I got it. In fact, it's starting to become difficult to get an overall picture of what songs are available by using the on-screen menu. I thought it would be useful if I had a list like a Karaoke Bar of all the song I had... So, I made one up. Turns out, I have 224 songs available in my Rock Band 2 game, counting the imported songs from Rock Band 1, my downloaded songs, and my imported songs from track packs. That's a lot of songs! Want to see my list?

Here it is!

I know my list will grow by at least 1 more... because Kenny Roger's "The Gambler" is due to come out sometime, and that's going to be awesome!

So, now I just need people to come over and play.

The Worst Disappointment In The History Of Human Civilization

You know what makes me mad?

The fact that when Season 4.5 of Battlestar Galactica comes out on DVD, it won't fit on the same row as the rest of them. Who do I blame? Universal for making the packaging too big, or Ikea for making the shelves too narrow?

Chuck Renewed For Season 3!

... and there was much rejoicing!

NBC renewed my new favourite show, Chuck, for a third season. However, right now it's just for a shortened 13 episode season with an option for 9 more, but that's far better than getting cancelled. Now all it has to do is gain a little traction from this "Save Chuck" movement so it can get an extension and more seasons. It's going to be a mid-season show and won't start until after the Olympics... so expect to hear more from me then.

In the meantime, if anyone wants to check this show out and borrow my Season 1 DVDs, let me know and I'll get them back from Joel.

My Experience With Internet Telephony

Right now, for work, we're doing telephone travel surveys for Stratford. Because Stratford is long distance from Waterloo, I had to look into options to keep calling costs down. Travelling to Stratford every night wasn't an option (milage would add up), and I didn't want our surveyor names to show up on call id. So, the best option seemed to be using the internet.

I first looked at Skype, since they're the best-known service, but they charge a connection fee of 6 cents each time you call a real number on top of the 2.9 cents per minute. Bell Internet Talk is the service that I ended up using, which uses Windows Live Messenger. As a service by itself, it worked decently. Quality was good and it was also 2.9 cents per minute without the connection charge per call. The problem arose when I tried to create 5 new hotmail accounts for my 5 surveyors. After 2, Microsoft blocked my IP from creating more hotmail accounts (presumably to prevent spammers), so I had to create them from other people's houses.

Once I got the accounts created, I tried to put money on the accounts (since it's pre-paid). After the first 2 accounts worked fine, I was unable to add money with my credit card anymore. I did manage to get around that (through endless chat sessions with customer service) and set up the accounts with money and set to automatically recharge to my credit card.

Well, as soon as the auto-recharges started happening, my accounts kept getting locked, and no amount of unlocking the accounts and chat sessions with customer service would help. I think that my credit card was raising red flags, since I've never used this type of service before. But even when I tried other cards, my account would still get locked.

So, my conclusion is that phone calls over the internet aren't a bad way to go... just don't try and get 5 accounts going at once.

New Star Trek Movie

I went to see the new Star Trek movie this weekend. My verdict is that it is all kinds of awesome! And it looks like it raked in a tonne of money this weekend. Here's hoping that it will bring about a sequel or two with this "rebooted" version.

I so have to see it again.