Yesterday wasn't bad

I got a huge virus on my laptop: Security Tool. It hijacked my desktop and wont let me run Windows. I've got some suggestions on how to get rid of it and I mentioned this to one of the Team India guys at work and he "said bring your laptop in and for $50, one of them will get rid of it." I'm skeptical but that means my laptop will be doormat for a couple of weeks. Be very careful of Security Tool, it's badware.

I had a slow start on the job but ended up around $200 by break. I got the cans and empties and such and in the 2nd half I did a lot better with $520. Actually I was tied for third. Again no bonus money. The Oiler game was on one of the other monitors about twenty feet away. I couldn't see much of the game. When I got home shortly before 10pm it was Pheonix 6 Oilers 1. I truley hate to say it this year but-"Oiler's suck." but I'm stuck with them.

Last nights Monday night Raw was really good. I don't know who the guest host was, some Nascar race care driver, but the show was one of the better Monday night Raw's in a long time. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Yesterday, what a great way to start off the week

Even though it’s +5 out there now it’s still relatively nice. You can get away comfortably enough with wearing just a sweater. We could stay like this until the end of the month. Then around November right after Halloween we’re usually about -1 temperature wise. Usually we don’t get the cold weather around these parts until about mid November.

I’m enjoying my first coffee feeling pretty good. Boots just took a dump and stank up the "office" here. Peeu.

I had a great night last night. I locked the place up and boarded the bus and caught my train to Corona station, walked up Jasper and over the cross walk then turned right heading to the Pharmacy. I got my lotto Max ticket for $30M for Friday’s draw and a diet Pepsi and got my old dialer #13 facing the overhead monitor for our 7pm Vancouver at Oilers. First places credit cards $25 bonus. Second place cards, $10 up for grabs. I had a steady start, a couple of cards. The guy beside me was coming in really loud. Not his fault, he’s a nice guy. I got a nice selection of empties and I was at $380 by break. In the middle of the pack somewhere. More empties and the hockey game tied at 1. I got a couple of $100 sales, bumps and was in second place for the last bonus. Jerry’s girlfriend and Jerry brought in 2 bags of cans for me as she brought in her little Poodle cross cute little thing. Was really friendly towards me. Jerry’s a good guy. The Oiler game was tied in the 3rd and even though I didn’t get any bonus money I had one of the top totals. We had 10 tap shooters doing Cops. I was just ripping it up with bumps and cards all night. I ended up with $910 and $295 for 5 cards. I was feeling good about my night and when I got outside it was raining pretty heavily heading towards my train.

I found a seat on the train with my empties and headed home. Even with the hoards of Oiler fans on the platform at Rexall didn’t hinder me from giving up my seat. Well, I had 3 bags of empties with me in their way.

When I got home to take off my shoes and put the empties away I checked on the game moments before Monday night Raw with Snoop Dogg. I like Snoop Dogg. The Oiler’s beat Vancouver 2-1. Khabibulin was putting on a goal tending clinic and he was the main reason why the Oiler’s won the game. Yesterday was a great day. Anne made us each a cheeseburger and fries for supper and the rest of Raw.

We went to bed about 3:30am listening to Coast. It wasn’t a bad show. On a scale from 1-10, I’d rate it a 6. For most of the early hours of the morning and before bed, read more from “The Space Wolf.”

Anne just now went to go sell the bottles. She’s off today but tomorrow I’m putting in an afternoon and same with Thursday since Jerry said with our new hours we part time evenings can work afternoons. Same as before. Good stuff.

Anyway gang, that’s about all for now

Jim

Monday wasn't that bad as days go......

I had a decent enough evening on the job Monday night. Monday night Raw was a blast. Even Anne enjoyed it. Currently I'm just starting a Warhammer 40K book and it's not bad even though the font is hard on the eyes. Weather wise it's been hot around here. I don;t mind the heat. Thursday is Lodge night and I'm all geared up for that.

Pat's fantasy hotlist is talking about co-author of the malazan series in an interview from Clocksworld. At SF Signal they've got a lot of links to free SFF stories. So much to read......

Anyway gang, that's about all for now

Jim

it's another meh kind of a Monday

We watched “The Valkyrie” with Ton Cruise last night. On a scale from 1-10 I’d rate it a 7. I thought the scenes were really good especially the North Africa and Prussia scenes. The DVD shows Tom in desert khaki on the back. It was a war movie and had it’s obligatory battle scenes in it. I’m a WW2 buff from way back cutting my education teeth on SPI and Avlon Hill wargames. What with this being memorial day in the US, Happy memorial day to all my American readers. I hope your l having a great day off. As for my wife and I we got to work this afternoon.

Anne’s sister is arriving shortly to pick her up and their going off to do a few things this afternoon as they’re going out and about to pick up a few things and Anne’s going to go to Wendy’s to pick me up a bacon cheese burger combo for my lunch today. Anne goes into work from 7-11 and I work from 5-9 today. So when I get home I’ll be watching my Monday night Raw by the time she gets home it’ll all be but over.

I’m right in the first 60 pages or so “ICB.” So far it’s holding it’s own. Anne’s sister should be pulling up shortly. As the gals are going out to do their thing. As for me, I’m going to post this and read some more from my book and check my email.

However there are 13 people here in Edmonton that made National news Friday that most likely don’t have to work today either. I doubt they’d get up and quite their jobs like that but I think they might have taken a few days off. Their replacements would need to be trained. I’m of course referring to the lucky 13 from the ATB bank that won last Wednesday‘s $49M historic draw here in Edmonton In case you haven’t heard these people worked on the 13th floor of the building they worked in. Wow. Lotto Canada held a press conference on this last Friday afternoon with the 13 winners and I gather they either all got cheques or one got the cheque and split 13 ways. I wonder if they all held bank accounts at the ATB bank where they worked. It’d make it easier for 13 people to split $49M. They each got $3.7M. Imagine say the employee that went around to the others every Monday and Friday to people that even worked on their floor. “Hey were all going in for the big $49M, do you want to put your $2 in?” I never win on those things>“No thanks.” Imagine how they must feel. “Doh!” The banks happy because it now has 13 millionaires as depositors. There was even one couple that was getting married. They gal won and her boyfriend is probably thinking, “Honey, lets hurry up and do this thing.” So to all the lucky 13 that won last Wednesday’s draw, good for you. I don’t think they went in to work today. I know if that was me at the press conference behind the table with the rest sharing that $49M. I wouldn’t be at work today either little alone Saturday. I’d split my share with my wife so we’d each get $1.8M on our bank cards. First thing we’d do is look for a condo. Anne’s been looking at one a few blocks away SE from us by the school. We’d be looking at buying today if that was one of us that won the share of the $49M. I’d get myself a new computer and the extras. I’d certainly pick up all my books at Audrey’s. Also I’d get all my ASL missing modules as well. Also a nice piano would be in the forecast as well. All the bills would be paid off, new cloths etc. What a great weekend those lucky 13 must have had. I wonder if they had a staff party or will have one this weekend. I know I couldn’t spend $1.8M in one weekend little alone in a year. I’d just live off the interest of what would be left over. And what a great time to win it to right in the middle of a recession. The bank will have no problem filling those vacancies that’s for sure. As for me and my wife, we just live from pay cheque-to-pay cheque. I’m lucky if I have $20 bucks in my pocket on a Saturday afternoon. But the odds of winning the 6/49 jackpot in itself are huge.

Pure Speculation has a new webpage up for 2009 and yes its confirmed Spider Robinson will be here October 2nd -4th. I’d love to go to see this one. I like their new motto: “In space no one can hear you geek.” That’s cute.

This day in strangeness……Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the English dramatist, novelist, politician and Rosicrucian was born. He wrote the famous line (plagiarized by many) “It was a dark and stormy night.”

The good folks over there at SF Signal are giving away a copy of Rachel Caine's “Carpe Corpus.” While I’m not really into the vampire genre thing and since my comment a few weeks back on their site suggesting they consider more book give-a-way’s seemed to work. Also at Pats Fantasy hotlist, he’s giving away a copy of Bruce Sterling’s “The Caryatids” to one lucky winner.

Sci-fi chick is talking about the recent ABC upcoming remake of the series “V.” I’m looking at the shot of the cast of characters and there doesn’t appear to be one person to be over 30. What do science fictions fans peak out and drop off at the age of thirty something? Hollywood casting would seem to think so. Or even if there is anyone over 30 in these shows they are in supportive roles. Ok, granted a show about Mr. and Mrs. Kent in Smallville might be a bit boring but geese already. I’m a sci-fan from way back when but I can’t relate to all the kids out there and I feel kind of disenfranchised by the “youth movement” in sci-fi and I understand the casting trends and political correctness and all that. It’s all fine and well to see ABC doing a remake of V but this 57 year old will not be tuning in.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim

Monday wasn't a bad day

after all. I got up around noon and watched the markets. Wow, the Dow was up by almost 500 points. Pretty amazing. Oil is just over $53.

At work we did semies all night, I didn't mind too much. I ended up with a $7.50 bonus and I got line hour and had a pretty good shift pulling in $330 and a $50 CC sale. I got a bunch of bottles and cans to take home on the train and I read a bit more of "The third lynx."

I got home, 10 minutes before Monday night Raw. It was a great show. on a scale from 1-10, I'd rate it a 9. Good stuff. The main event was very interesting.

I still haven't found time to do much memory work on my Lodge stuff but I hope to get that taken care of this week but I have no printer to print out a hard copy and I really need this. I hope I haven't taken on more then I can handle.

After Raw, I ended up playing some "Oblivion." I'm still at level 5 but wondering how many Save games I have left. I'm at 455 save games. I hope it just resets itself. It's a fun game with a lot of character.

Anyway gang, that's about all for now

e. Jim

Yeesh we're

back at it again. Seems next Monday the Harper PC Government, here in Canada needs to bring out a budget. That in itself isn’t bad but what is bad news for us here in Canada is that the Liberals and the NDP have joined forces to bring down the Tory Government in a non confidence vote. Keep in mind that Harper has a minority Government. He’s at the mercy of the other official party leaders. If they don’t like a major bill like a budget they can call for a non confidence vote. In other words we’re most likely going to the polls again. With all the political instability here in this crazy country is there any wonder investment and consumer confidence is down. A 3 party system is the way to go but this ganging up on one leader because he has a minority is simply wrong. We’ll know next week sometime if and when there will be a major election-again.

Not much going on at the moment. I’m enjoying my first coffee for the day. We’ve got our rent ready (more or less) for today. My wife gets paid on Friday. Christmas looks good. This week I’ve got lodge night. It’s my turn to be Tyler. Should be fun. Hopefully in the new year, I’ll have a new job and I can have every Thursday night off without having to explain to management where I am every other Thursday night.

Its grey out there and windy but holding at +6C. Our snow is supposed to get here this week sometime. Most likely as I’m going to lodge. Oh well its about time. I also noticed that the book cover images on my Blogger Blog are broken but the same images are intact on my website. Most strange. I think it might have something to do with a passwaord change where I upload my images to get a URL. I'll try and fix it up after Monday night Raw tonight.

Anyway Bloggers, that’s all for now

e. Jim

I'm enjoying my first

cup of coffee here this afternoon. Coffee should be a relaxing time. You take fifteen minutes or so off for quiet and enjoyment of the beverage. Letting it’s calming affects sooth away negative stress of the day. A cup of coffee is better then a cigarette anytime. Coffee doesn’t always work though. Some days a cup of coffee can taste so good you wish it’d last forever. Other days it tastes sour and for me if I drink more then 2 cups a day I have trouble sleeping at night. Today’s cup of coffee is just right. The only thing missing are my wake up tunes but I’m awake anyway.

Basically I’m still in the middle of this “Icewind dale trilogy,” book. This is a good yarn and I’m having a lot of fun with it. My next read will be hard pressed to keep up with this book. My copy of Icewind dale is getting worn because I’m hauling it around in my bag to work everyday, although the spine seems to be holding up well.

I had a nice weekend off filled with most of the things I wanted to do. I got some music theory in and watched a couple of good Oiler games. It’s nice to see them winning, even on the road for a change. I downloaded a lot of video as well last night.

A couple of video’s I was enjoying: First a 6 part documentary on L. Ron Hubbard. It Didn’t explain a lot about the last days of his life. I still have the original newspaper article about the news of his death that January in 1986. I was never a fan of Scientology or Dienetics but I liked some of LRH’s science fiction-writing. I enjoyed the novel “Battlefield Earth,” and subsequently his “Mission Earth” series. Just a few misconceptions about LRH: Firstly, so the story goes, LRH never met Aleister Crowley. LRH hung out with a student of Crowley’s in California a chemist by the name of Jack Parsons. They worked on a ritual together. LRH ran off with Parsons wife and a large portion of Parson’s money. LRH was never one of my personal hero’s. He was a curiosity for me that held some mild interest and occasionally still does.

The other video was a documentary on Aleister Crowley. This documentary was more engaging then the one on LRH and in 5 parts covered the life and times of Aleister Crowley better then the video on LRH. Both of these characters had huge ego issues. Hubbard I think more so then Crowley. I’ve read a lot of Crowley’s work in the 1980’s and even joined his OTO (Order Templi Orientus.) Crowley arguably has more substance in his work then LRH did. To me, LRH and his spin off orgs were more of a cult then the OTO. I went through 4 initiations with the OTO and thoroughly enjoyed my OTO experience. People often ask me if I believe in the Law of Do what thou wilt, Thelema and Liber Oz? The thing about “Do what thou wilt” is in it’s interpretation: It doesn’t mean you can walk around aimlessly and do whatever you feel like. Like everything in life there are consequences to one’s actions. Most people can figure this out for themselves. I’ll go into this some other time. But yes I wouldn’t endorse them if I didn’t have a link in my welcome block on my website would I?

Also I downloaded a video from a show like Coast to Coast about Aleister Crowley and his being a double agent in WW1. It was in 5 parts. Pretty cool.

Both these figures are larger then life. We don’t get characters like Aleister Crowley, L. Ron Hubbard or Lee Harvey Oswald anymore. It was a different time back then. The world has truly gotten smaller because of the Internet. Here's another photo. Sorry they're not in order. They were all taken within the last 20 minutes though. First came the book cover then the shot of the street and now the Sun's out:

I also took this photo about 10 minutes ago right after the one above. It's not a bad looking day out there. All the leaves are gone from the trees now. It's about +11C out there. Fairly mild for this time of year.In a couple of hours I’ll be out of here to head into work. I got my Lodge stuff all figured out (more or less) for Thursday. Tonight I’ll be on the job hard at it and maybe I’ll get a bit of reading in as well. After that it’s home for a night of good old wrestling.

Anyway Bloggers that’s all for now

e. Jim

A nice couple of days

Anne convinced me I should stay home tonight because my BSL reading was so high previously. I checked it again about 3pm this afternoon and it was back down to a more manageable level but I hadn’t slept well this weekend.

Hey, I’ve got a decent ad now on my Adbrite block. I don’t know if its generating me any cash at all. According to my stats counter I received 27 hits so far today. The day before close to 60.

One thing I’ve been thinking about recently is the fact that I’ll be 60 years old in another 4 years. Uggh. What it means is under the Canada Pension Plan, I can take early retirement at the age of 60. Most people get about $500 but there are provincial supplements. The thing is, I might be able to claim a medical under Social Services due to my scoliosis and diabetes. Plus I can also work a bit as well even without Social Services. The reason why Social Services would be a benefit to me is because SS would cover my diabetic supplies like insulin and test strips etc. plus I might even be able to work part time 3 days/week with SS but because I’m married without children I doubt SS would work in my favor. I’d rather be married anyway. But taking early retirement and the supplements would helpmy wife and I out a little.

Anne called me about 8pm last night saying how she called my place of work and Rob picked up the phone. “James who?” and she let him know I wouldn’t be coming in. She said something under his breath, “well I’ll let the big wigs know.” Like I should be concerned. After that BS the worst he could do would be to suspend me and for what because I called in sick? I’ll go in at my regular time and yeah, he’ll be there squeaking giving me a dirty look. Yeesh. He was making a reference to the heat call I got 2 weeks ago. But I’m here every Friday night/Saturday Rob.

I got my pizza meal. It was really nice except for the crust, I got 10 chicken peices and these were realy nice the size of chicken balls. It came with a handful of curley fries. it was quiet a meal. I watched Raw and had a good night off by myself.

Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now

e. Jim

Monday is done

I left in a really foul mood out the door at 4pm. Anne was all upset about the amount of money the Feds were taking out of her RRSP and basically taking it out on me. Coupled that with her doing laundry and not feeling well sort of set her off a couple of times. We got our rent money for October that’s the main thing. At 4pm all I wanted to do was to get out of the apartment and get on that train for an end of the line ride and back again to the office. I decided I’d walk my anger off to the LRT being nasty to someone that wanted directions to Bo Didlies pub across the street. The train ride in and the nice +25C weather mellowed my mood somewhat and I headed over to the office and upstairs. I had a chat with the fellow about the markets and the big thing everyone is talking about, the US economy. Speaking of, which on the news tonight in between Raw, they were saying that the US economy represents 25% of the Worlds economy. That’s no chump change.

I decided to call Anne at home. “I’m sorry,” blah, blah, blah type thing. All was forgiven. I forgot my pop and sandwiches. So it’s official, finally Rob is saying we have to use the DNC rules. I got 3 DNC’s myself but if someone other then the name on the screen says “Take my name off the list” its a TD 9. It doesn’t count. So that ok. Also I got top total again and a $10 bonus plus 3 CC’s. Good deal. I had a pretty good evening. Most likely on the news tomorrow night the DNC will be the talk of the town and I’ll get a dozen of them. The thing is I don’t know just how many numbers Xl has to work with but we get to call Canada wide, so that’s a lot of numbers. Today we get to do cold calling uggh. So there is a real probability that I could be out of a job sooner then latter. It’s not that I don’t have any options. I wouldn’t mind working 5-9 security guard work have Wednesdays and Thursdays off type thing. Or even say work Piazza 10-2am. Saturday’s it’s 10-3 but that’s not a regular shift. Before I do anything drastic I want to see what’s going on in the Federal election. If Canadians vote a Harper or Majority or minority, then fine, I’ll stay the course with my present job-for now. If it’s a carbon tax then I’ll be bailing out of my job so fast it’d make me dizzy. Dion is so low in the polls anyway so I doubt anything drastic will happen.

Anyway I had a relaxing train ride home and Anne called my cell phone on the bus waiting at Clairview. She put my wrestling channel on for me and when I got home, I watched Raw, which was just great. DX showed up tonight. Good stuff.

That’s about all for now. Not much going on. This week is lodge night and I’d like to go show up. Should be a lot of fun. I tried calling my buddy Charles earlier but he wasn’t available. I’m still reading Icewind Dale. Good stuff. My goal is 100 pages/week.

Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now

e. Jim