Runaway Future

Last night, right before I went to bed, I had a premonition that my BBQ cover would get caught in the wind and fly away. So I went out on my balcony in my boxers and fastened the little velcro strips on the cover around the legs of the BBQ.

When I got home today, the cover was in a crumpled mess on the balcony. The only thing that kept it from flying off was the single velcro strip that I fastened late last night.

And that’s the kind of day it has been.

I think I got hit on today by a Dell Customer Support person. I was on the phone with her for like an hour and before I know it she’s asking me what I do for fun, how I like my job and if I’ve ever been to Calgary (Business Support is based out of Calgary). It was a little odd, then after I get off the phone with her, she drops me an email to make sure everything was handled and I was satisfied by the service. Then I had to call her back. Ah l’amour. hahaha

I need to meet with my bosses to try to figure out how I can get away from doing the non-techie parts of my job, and focus on what (I think) I should really be doing. I’m a bit frustrated because I feel like my skills are a bit more specialized then some (based merely on the fact I’m the only IT guy, not because I’m better or smarter or anything like that). There’s a number of different initiatives that I would want to do, like a big programming project or redesigning the websites, but instead I find myself bogged down with things that…don’t require my IT diploma. I keep feeling that I’m being pulled from every direction and so I’m slipping, I have a limited amount of time and I need to reduce my workload. I think it’s possible my personal issue with motivation might have some root in this too, I have too much stuff thrown on my plate and so it’s an issue of ‘where to start’. I’m eager to try and see if some changes can be made, maybe to redefine my job a bit to ensure a focus directly on technology. Hope for the best.

And so, with a laptop case full of work to do, I’m planning on going to the Oasis to watch the Leafs. I need this, so fuck consequence.

So I keep seeing previews for The Marine, the new movie with Wrestling star, John Cena. The one thing that sticks out of the preview is that Cena does some sort of choke-slam to a guy. Now I don’t watch enough wrestling to know what the exact name of the move is, but that sort of crap is exactly what’s wrong with these wrestling movies. It’s pure cheese.

I remember watching The Rundown and seeing The Rock give a guy the Rock Bottom in a fight. Like seriously? Everyone knows that these guys are wrestlers, what’s the point behind throwing in their ‘signature moves’.

At the basis, I think wrestlers could be decent action heroes, maybe even actors. They can’t be much worse then guys like Arnold and Jean-Claude Van Damme. The Rock has been able to almost carve a respectable career out of it. He’s not there, but he’s getting close. However, there needs to be a seperation between film and ring, and not have the corny nod to wrestling by having the stars trying to find a way to squeeze a finishing move into a street fight.

Going home for Thanksgiving was good. Plenty of food, some hard working around the house, drinking with Daniel and Chris until the wee hours of the morning. I got a couch cover that doesn’t really fit right, but that’s ok. I also got the rest of my stuff up here from home, hello three more boxes of books. Couldn’t ask for much more.

They tore down my high school. I feel all sentimental about that. I mean, that building housed a crucial part of my growing up, my formative years. Not like they would have kept the building there, but it’s rather shocking and dramatic.

Another shocking and dramatic development is that Nova Scotia Justice Peter Richard’s opinion is worth more then the rest of Nova Scotia! Yeap, the whole province voted on Sunday shopping a few years back, and with a few words and strokes of pen, that democratic opinion was rendered null and void. Ah, democracy at work.

The Sunday shopping flip bothers me for two reasons, one is that there was a plebisicite and it has since been ignored. Sure the No side won by 2 percent and a large number of eligible voters chose not to (probably busy shopping at Pete’s), but in the end the question was put to the population and an answer found. But apparently the views of the majority of the province who gave a damn, those views just don’t matter. I know using the plebisicite as a measure is short-sighted but you have to assume that those who did not vote do not care for Sunday Shopping one way or another. If the plebisicite didn’t go in your favour…sour grapes folks, welcome to democracy.

The second reason is because the province’s labour laws don’t protect employees enough. So while Sunday Shopping works like a charm in other provinces, their labour laws are a lot more helpful to the working poor than ours. Telling them to find another job that doesn’t make them work Sundays isn’t an option, it’s not about religion, it’s about workers rights.

Go to Pete’s any other day of the week and it’s empty. And the same people who cram into the Frootique on a Sunday are the same white-collar nine-to-fivers who don’t have to worry about working on a Saturday, let alone a Sunday to begin with. Shopping on Sunday is being pushed by those who are far too concerned with their own convienence to think of those less fortunate then themselves: the people who are really affected by this move.

Just food for thought about Nova Scotia finally “joining modern society”:
Many Western European countries are moving towards restricting Sunday shopping as an attempt to improve quality of life. Hrm…

So yeah, I’m going to keep doing what I’ve done for a while, since I’ve informed myself properly on the issue, I’m going to avoid shopping on Sundays. The province will be fine and we’ll all accept this change, it just saddens me to see democratic process overturned so quickly and workers rights trambled on so needlessly. There’s been rumblings about changing the labour laws (after the fact, of course). Meh. Apparently it’ll cost taxpayers about 1.7 million to have public transportation bumped up to handle the new load on Sunday. Joyful.

Keeping with the I hate everything vibe: Here’s a good editorial on the Stones visit.

In other news, Jon Stewart dispelled the notion of following the plot of the new Robin Williams flick and running for President with Stephen Colbert in 2008.

Sticking with that, the Saginaw Spirit of the OHL debuted Steagle Colbeagle the Eagle, a new mascot named after Stephen Colbert. However, all is not great for the Saginaw Spirit, now that five of their top players are under investigation for an incident with a 15-year-old girl.

Some of my co-workers want me to call a girl who used to work with us. I am unsure.

And may lightning shoot out of my ass.

more later…

By now everyone’s heard of the new Canadian Forces advertisements that don’t depict the usual smiling cadets driving tanks in parades and giving fisherman blankets on the open seas. The new ads caused a bit of a hubbub, because they display realistic situations that our Canadian Forces can see themselves in today, namely missions in Afghanistan, as well as grittier looks at the happy cheery stuff like rescuing people on the ocean, fighting forest fires and floods. (on a side note, since all the noise has been made, it seems they show the “Rescue” ad a helluva lot more frequently than the “Combat” ad). The NDP (who else) called it war-mongering, because obviously we should not have to deal with what our Forces actually do (something the country is having a hard time getting over already with our tragic losses of young men and women in Afghanistan). For someone like me, who’s probably a lot closer to the target audience for these ads then a stuffy middle-age MP (NDP or not), I respect the idea that it provides what I would assume is a lot closer representation of what service is than the happy cheery ads of the past.

Which brings us back to the beginning, I’ve seen a bunch of web advertisements for the Canadian Forces over the past week and they’re all using the old slogan “Strong, Proud, Today’s Canadian Forces”. So is this just a case where they’ve been unable or slow to deploy the new “Fight” campaign to all forms of media, or are the Canadian Forces backing down a bit on their new image?