Anyone who knows me knows I’m quite wary of spiders. Very much so. Very very much so. In fact, I had a dream only a couple of nights ago where I was back home in my room, filled with debris (so, you know, quite normal so far) but there was this tiny spider on the wall, but with really really really long legs, and as I sprayed it with Raid, more bugs kept pouring out of the wall.

So I was here asleep, but woke up at around 3am, not sure why, just woke up, decided to have a drink and look around online for a bit. Midnight was on the bed so I was petting her, and then she gets tense and looks up. I glance up but don’t see anything so I figure she’s just doing that thing again, you know, how cats always see something just over your left shoulder and freak you out. But no, she was still looking up… so I look up and wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness relative to the bright monitor I had been looking at, and see a damn spider scampering quite quickly across the ceiling. Damn. It’s one of those spindling legged ones that I seem to get most often, the ones that will make a little web-nest in the corners where wall meets ceiling. Not sure of the actual name of the subtype, but I know them well. I had even killed one a few days ago in my room. I’m convinced they get in through the balcony door gaps.

Anyway, I get up and leave the room, as I’m want to do when a spider is running around in it. The cat still watching. I turn on some lights and grab my Raid (which, of course, I have handy having killed that other one). I’m annoyed that I woke up for this, how do I always know? Anyway, I hate these spiders because when sprayed, they have the tenancy to just bloody well jump from whereever they are, and I didn’t want this thing falling on my desk or worse my bed, and I’d never find it.

It had been racing around in a couple directions for a bit, and I was hoping it would head towards a wall so I could spray it and have it fall somewhere I could see so I could finish it off and dispose of it. Alas, it suddenly doubled back and raced towards the area over my bed. I decided to try to coax it back to the far wall by blowing… mind you I’m still near the doorway of my room, so I’m blowing at it from at least a meter away on the horizontal plane, and it’s probably half a meter up from my lips, making it… oh, something like 1.11 meters away. It fricken jumps, because of a light breeze. I figure something must have annoyed it for it to be running around like that to begin with.

So now I have no clue where it went, so I just leave the room and watch TV. Maybe the cat will get it, or maybe it will find a wall, climb up and I can start this again. After a while I’m tired of nighttime TV and come back into the room, the cat having joined me in the living room soon after I left since she follows me. I slowly from outside… then I take a big step in and look around the door frame and inner wall of the door frame to see if it’s actually behind me at this point (don’t laugh, earwigs have done that crap). I can’t see the damn thing. The cat comes in and starts swatting at some stuff on the floor as if she had either found it, or killed it and was just looking for more at the last place she saw it. But it doesn’t seem like that’s the case.

It was hard to judge just where the spider would have come down, I was sort of looking for a silk line from the ceiling, but I didn’t think these spiders would make those, so I guessed that maybe it would have come down in the very narrow region between the desk and the bed, so I get a flashlight and look there. And there it was, twitching a bit, but not at all a well spider. Evidently not noticed by the cat. It jumped from the ceiling because of a light gust of air, and slapped into the floor and that was it. I had just assumed that a little spider (well, as compared to a giant one like a tarantula) would have a small enough terminal velocity that it would survive that jump even without a lifeline. Guess not.

I think this entry is entirely too long to have reached that conclusion. But still, I thought it was interesting.
A spider was harmed in the creation of this story, if this upsets you, then I suggest you don’t read the news.

I’m on vacation this week, I had a bunch of days I had to take so I decided to put them in a bunch and basically take off thanksgiving. But it is a pointless vacation, no plans, bad sleep, etc and so on. Nothing much has been going on. For thanksgiving I went home, developed and cold, and basically felt miserable, but the cold appears to have mostly abated. Back here, I’ve been staying up almost all night due to the sleep pattern inspired by the heat of the nights back home and the discomfort of the cold. At least I’m spending a lot of time with my cat, heh.

I think I’ll work on my Zygote game, it will be ready for release any century now. One day I’ll have to port it to windows or something. I’m just toying with it right now. I’m pretty well stuck on the collision detection, which is kinda important. I suck at math.

In any case, I needed the time off work. It’s been pretty intense lately, so it’s nice to have some extended down time, though it will be above-full tilt as soon as I return. *sigh*

I need to write this out quickly as I’m going to a cottage tomorrow, and don’t want to forget the whole deal. So last weekend (more accurately, Sunday to Tuesday) some friends and I went on a wine tour in Niagara.

The first night we got there we checked into the hotel and then went to the falls, I photographed many many many pictures of a rainbow, not sure why, it was just pretty I guess. Later we enjoyed the midway where I won what I thought was a sick number of tickets from a token-pushing game. You know the ones, a Mr Bean episode had one, where there is a little wall that cycles, pushing coins towards the drop-zone, and then moves back again, and the goal is to get your coin to cause a chain reaction to push coins down. On no other game did I get as many tickets, but even then the combined winnings of Curtis, Alicia and I were enough for a football and some trinkets. Later we watched the fireworks over the falls and found dinner at this place called Coco’s where the waitress kept coming by asking us if we needed anything because apparently someone somewhere kept telling her we needed her.

I must have taken a dozen other shots of this

The next day we had to get up relatively early to meet our tour driver, 9:30 I think. The 8 of us piled in the van and went off to our first vineyard, Jackson-Triggs, where we toured the production facility and then learned our first lesson on drinking wine. Step one was to tilt the glass and inspect the colour, checking for clarity in a white wine, or the rubyness of a red wine. Then we are to take a sip to cleanse the palate, which I rarely did since I don’t like wine until a later step. Then you smell the wine. Then swirl it to aerate it a bit. Smell again (it smells much better now). Take a sip and consider the taste, then take in air like a reverse-whistle and consider the taste. That last step is the only way I managed to drink my red wine. I still hate the stuff, but I had a couple of whites I enjoyed. I was expecting a later step about checking for the ‘legs’ of the wine as the residue from tilting it broke across the glass, but no step was forthcoming from the vineyard tour-giver, alas. It was then I had discovered ice-wine. Oh lord. So good it was, I bought a bottle of it from them. It’s like nectar. When the reds came out, Murad dumped some of his in the bucket, and he got a stern talking to from Laura, she wanted to be the bucket. Alicia bought a pack of 3 icewines at Jackson-Triggs to keep the one bottle she already had previously company, and presumably one day one might be drunk. But I can see why she’d hold onto them, they are preciously expensive tiny bottles of ambrosia (see the Maleta section)

Our next stop was Palatine Hill, where it was just a tasting. They also gave us an ice-wine, but they had a Vidal non-icewine that sort of reminded me of an ice-wine, so I bought a bottle of that, I’m taking it up to the cottage where I hope it goes over well. Since no tour occurred, not much to say about it, other than they had a very large and tired dog semi-guarding the place. They had given us a few tastings, didn’t really seem to count the ones we had, sometimes poured whatever, other times asked what we wanted.

The next stop was Strewn that had a cooking school and a restaurant as part of its operation. We had lunch there, nothing terribly memorable, but it all seemed okay. I think 3rd of 4 is a hard place to be in when it comes to vineyard tour orders. People buy stuff at the first because it’s the first one, then probably get something at the second. By the third, they are all bought-out and probably more conservative. The fourth, being last, suddenly reinvigorates the wallet, since it’s the last chance. In any case, I didn’t get anything from Strewn, and I think a few others also failed to do so as well. The tasting had I think a white, a red, and an ice-wine. Some paid for more tastings, but I didn’t feel like it. They gave us an icewine that was pretty good. I think perhaps one other ice-wine called a Late Harvest where they press the grapes again and get something that’s not quite as sweet, but still a nice flavour. We all got a generous helping of that, but for some reason, people didn’t care for it, and many used Alicia’s glass as the bucket, and so she ended up drinking nearly a full glass of it.

One of many rows of vines, sort of like a simple-man’s hedge maze

The last place was a something that was running out of what I think was their own private residence. It was a tiny place, with a tiny field of vines, called Maleta. Apparently they make some good wine, but not much of it, so it’s sort of a specialty. By that time, we were getting wined out, but they gave us 4 tastings, 2 whites and 2 reds. Being a small operation, I guess they couldn’t part with icewines. For the first three wines, they had an accompanying cracker with either cream cheese or actual cheese on it, which was the only place to do something like that. They did offer a taste of an icewine for $4, but it was free if you bought the bottle. They had a 2003 vidal that was reasonable, but a 2002 vidal that was in an even smaller bottle, and apparently won awards. Since I’m a sucker for that kind of thing, I bought one of those for a tidy sum. I’ll probably hang onto it the longest. So now that I know of icewines, something tells me I’ll scope them out. I can only imagine how many calories they are. But hopefully the price will keep my tastebuds in check. All in all, I learned I still hate red wine, am sometimes able to like white wine, and otherwise enjoy sugar in things.

That night we hit the casino, not much to speak of there, other than my losing $40 in very short order to no good dirty slot machines. Alicia stayed alive for a good while playing a sort of roulette-like game. Curtis opted out entirely and just watched us. I think others lost a bit or broke even. One amusing anecdote that will probably be referenced for a while was how the game-runner would wave their hands over the betting-board to stop the bets just before a spin. It looked like they were casting a spell or something. That night we ended up at Coco’s again god help us.

A weird water-flowing sculpture at the casino, which I’m sure pulls in the crowds from the falls next door

Apparently climbing fences more ornate than this one is a danger, so I assume this one is fine

The next day was wrap up, so we checked out of the hotel and went to Niagara-on-the-lake to browse around the town. It reminded me most of St. Jacobs, a little touristy town. I didn’t buy anything, having already spent enough money for one weekend. We went to a restaurant where we were denied seating on the patio as there was nowhere to seat 8, despite the fact the patio was deserted. Apparently the tables and chairs are simply incapable of being moved without disrupting the harmony and flow of the restaurant. After that, it was home time, we said our faretheewells, and we went off.

My friends know to stay ahead of me and to walk away as quickly as possible

One interesting thing was our time in the hotel rooms. I was with Curtis, and he and Alicia both brought their DS’s and games. Alicia had a weird little game called Elite Beat Agents which fascinated me, despite my inability to play. It’s sort of a DS version of Amplitude, or probably more like Dance-Dance-Revolution, except you use the stylus to touch circles on the screen at the right time (ie, in the beat). Not having any sort of natural rhythm, I failed utterly at it, but the weird plot of Beat Agents who somehow by rocking out cause the day to be saved and the anime feel of it all, I found it very amusing, so here’s a flash of that. I spent a little more time with the DS. I’m not much of a game player anymore, sadly, but it is a very neat device.

Anyway, it was a short vacation, but it was sorely needed. Props to Alicia for organizing. And so, now, for a long weekend, off to cottage.

So I’ve finished watching the Simpsons Season 10 (with commentary of course). So I’ve been putting them on in the background while I do other stuff (without commentary). I’ve seen them before so many times that there isn’t much point of actually watching most of them, others I may have only seen once so I pay attention to them.

One that caused me to take notice was Bart The Mother. I had seen it before, in fact I saw it on television the last time I was home I think. The thing that got me was that… something was wrong…. what was it?… Homer didn’t sound right… Bart sounded most right… Marge sounded fine as far as I can tell…. but Homer was definitely off. It was like the sound was slowed down, just the tiniest of bits.

I thought, shit, is something wrong with the DVD. But I was too tired to play with it, so I played the episode again this morning… seemed fine. But then I realized (using my QA powers) that I didn’t quite do it the same this time. I played it through the episode selection rather than the Play All. So I tried Play All, skipping past the first episodes in the way, and there it is again, weird slow down. It’s the only one I know of with this issue, so far. I tried looking online but couldn’t spot any other complaints, which either means it’s specific to me, specific to a laughably small group, or it’s just my computer’s DVD player being stupid… but odd that it would be stupid in that way. Never seen that before, that I’ve noticed anyway.

So I’ve posted the first opening joke from the episode in question, as mp3, the first part is when I used Play All to get to the episode, where things sound off, and the second is when I select the episode itself from the main menu, where it sounds right. Assuming I highlighted the waveforms in the right place, even that shows a slight difference in waveform-length.

In other news, heading up to Niagara for a couple of days with friends to drink the wine, see the sights, and verb the adjective noun. This mini-vacation probably couldn’t have come at a worse time work-wise, as I have about 50% more work than can actually be done right now.

If I don’t come back, avenge my death

Welp, I just spent most of my quarterly bonus, well, the last bonus, and not for the entire quarter, just two months of it, since Infor has different policies. Oh yeah, my company was bought by Infor, I didn’t talk about that since I don’t talk about work. But as I originally posted about having been hired by Workbrain, I guess I’ll say, I’ve been hired by Infor (by virtue of not having been un-hired when they took over)

Anyway, so I’m now a ambivalent ipod owner. I dunno about these things, I got one for my mother for christmas because it has a reputation of being easy to use and I thought that would help, and she loves it. My brother got one for his birthday from my mother, and he apparently enjoys his. And now that I go to the gym, and my gymming cohort has had to miss the last couple, I thought I would get one to give me distraction while I elliptical myself to death for 2 hours.

But it didn’t stop there, oh no, I bought a 320 GB external drive as well, since I always seem to need more space, woot. And then I bought another massive surge protector since my UPS takes up one socket, and an extension cord running to the other side of the room (for lamp, fan, alarm clock) takes up the other, and I have no more outlets other than that one dual outlet, which sucks. So I’ll plug the new adaptor into the extension cord one and then the cord into it. I really don’t want to overtax my poor UPS.

And it didn’t stop there either, cause then I got a case for my ipod since I know they scratch like hell (I presume apple did this on purpose, to fuel an accessory business). And finally, I picked up season 10 of the Simpsons, just because I felt like it.

When I was buying the ipod, the guy went through their service plan, and tried to coax me into getting it. But I never go for those things, I’ve never really had a problem with these things, and if I did, then I’d just suck it up. There are other warranties on these things, and it’s not that huge of an item. A computer, yes, I’d probably think more about it, but these always feel like a scam to me. It was originally like 80 dollars, when I first said no, he said “…. well, what if it was *clickity* 60 dollars?”. I know he lost commission or will get punished or something, but I’m just not willing to pay them money so they can tell me the service plan won’t cover whatever happened to whatever you are complaining about and oh you don’t have the special Service Plan pin we gave you then I’m sorry there is nothing we can do no I assure you nothing will someone get security over here…. yeah.

So I now have my goodies, and my account weeps. I’ll probably blog in a minute when my ipod melts or something “Why?! Why didn’t I get that service plan!?!?”

Another bus story,

Already incredibly tired and frustrated from today, on the bus ride home a woman and Little Boy get on the bus at some point between work and home. Little Boy simply cannot help swinging from the (utterly useless) hand-holds suspended above, blocking other passengers as they attempt ingress or egress. Woman seems a little too old to be Little Boy’s mother, Little Boy appearing to be around 8 or so.

As about 10 stops from my destination, Little Boy decides it is fun to swing from the bar, while reaching up behind and toggling the Request-Stop button on the vertical bar next to him, avoiding the gaze of his .. keeper. After a few stops where no one gets off, the bus driver gets a little irritated and punishes all by waiting, a very long time, at the 3rd last stop of my trip. Then he gets going again, and stupid Little Boy does it again… finally the bus driver just sits at the stop, now only one stop away from mine. Another bus comes up along side and stops, and almost everyone on the bus gets out and onto it. I walk up and ask what’s going on, the driver says he won’t move because of the people messing around with the signal. So I tell him Little Boy did it.

The *mother just says “I didn’t see it, so it wasn’t him”… I really wanted to say “Well, that just means you’re negligent”, but I decided to demonstrate how Little Boy did it, saying how I saw it several times from the perfect vantage point I had at the back, also telling him that swinging around wasn’t a very good way to stay inconspicuous, he should stay still while pressing the button. By now the bus was already moving again, with I think only me and Little Boy and *mother on it. Then I say “But now I’m pressing the button” and the bus driver confirms that this is my stop. I leave, annoyed.

I don’t enjoy telling off other people, or their kids, especially on what I will laughingly call Toronto’s Transit system, but today, ugh.

Curtis came over on the Sunday and Monday of the long weekend, being the only person who was free to hang out. He gave me my birthday present, and I could never have guessed it in a million years. It was a desktop catapult, which I will use to terrorize co-workers. It’s pretty neat, despite my inability to photograph it properly.

Now I need little explosive charges

We just hung out that night, he slept over then on Monday we went to the ROM. Tell me, what is a museum without dinosaurs? Whatever it is, the ROM is now. Pretty well the entire 2nd floor was closed, and that has the stuff I find most interesting. But we went to basically every exhibit that was open, made an afternoon of it.

Today Salman snuck into my workplace and we hung out for an hour or so, he missed our re-org so it seems things are all changy, but that only happened recently. Shouts out to Salman if he’s reading.

My birthday is tomorrow. The annual sigh.

It’s my brother’s birthday today, and another few days until mine, thus we are in the short span of time where my brother is 5 years older than me, rather than the usual 4.

Since I was home we did a few things while it was convenient, like had a family BBQ which was a success with the minor note that part of the family didn’t show up. Also my parents did both our birthday stuff so I got my swag from them already. I also left my cat behind… poor Midnight… but there were some things going on at my apartment that I had to get her out for, so once finished I’ll reclaim her…

I am now armed with a set of good knives that I’m sure Curtis will want to sample the next time it’s safe to prepare food at my apartment. I also now have a paper shredder to further outwit all those who should wish to steal my identity (I know, I’m a freakin’ good catch). I’m also now in possession of one of those Bathroom Reader books, one of which John has at his cottage (which most of the people I know are at right now).

I also went out and got Stargate Atlantis seasons 1 and 2 (1 was a present from my brother, wherein I picked it out and he bought it, heh, and 2 I got since they had it). I also bought a digital camera which I’ve been playing with almost constantly.

It’s a Casio Exilim card which I would link to directly, but it’s a crappy flash site. 3x zoon, 7.2 megapizza’s, 2.6 inch LSD. Well, I jest, I do know what those terms are, but they are just buzzish crap. The camera is nice, I also got a case for it, and a 2 Gig memory card, which should keep me happy. I cannot for the life of me find out how much memory it has built in just by reading the manual and the box, but this site tells me that it is 8 megs, which is garbage, but the 2 gigs should keep me happy.

In fact, here are some pictures of stuff…
(more…)

There is lots to talk about, and I haven’t updated in a while, but honestly, I’m too tired. It’s very possible I’ll have just oodles of time to write in this thing very soon, but if and when that occurs, I’ll just post this.

Years ago when I lived in Ottawa, Ricmoo was, and still is, a mediaphile, and one of the things he showed us was this music video that for some reason intrigued me, but then I forgot about it, never knew what it was, and life went on.

Until a certain Simpsons episode parodied it:

And here is the actual video:

You just have to love practical effects.

Hopefully youtube doesn’t pull these videos. I was in the middle of watching Odyssey 5 episodes when they all got pulled, ugh.

Bonus video – Grace Kelly