Canada, Gold!

Canada Gold! What a game. I got up about 12:45pm settled in and watched the best Olympic hockey I’ve ever seen. Team Canada got the first goal in the first period and then the 2nd. Team USA got their first goal in the 2nd and in the 3rd with 24 seconds left scored to tie the game. Then Overtime. As if that wasn’t a nail biter in itself then Iginla to Crosby and a wild shot on Miller and it’s in. Team Canada won Gold. The first time ever on Home soil. Amazing. Sydney Crosby won in the last 12 months a Stanley Cup with Pittsburgh Penguins and now a Gold medal for Canada! I love it. And there’s more hockey yet to come. The mad scramble on the March 3rd trade deadline is on Wednesday and then there’s a good chance that the Vancouver Canucks will be in the NHL playoffs in April and who knows— maybe even in the Stanley Cup finale and wouldn’t it be a great story if the Canucks won? I’d love it.

Earlier this morning I played some more on RuneScape. I finally got some gold and able to make a bit more progress in my character. I play a little bit each day.

Right now at 10 before 5pm it’s +6. Excellent. We’ve been having some pretty good weather lately. But I don’t think even though we have a month left of winter, were out of the woods yet. Next week it’s looking like we’re going back to some +1’s and 0’s but still above normal. It’s an El Nino winter this year.

I’m enjoying this book “City of Pearl.” CP. It’s actually pretty decent for a début novel and there’s another 5 books sin the series. This should keep me busy till about the end of May or June.

Tonight Anne and I are going to be watching the closing Olympic ceremonies. It’s been an interesting 17 days as this winter Olympics have opened my eyes to some sports and the Olympics in general. I never used to watch the Olympic hockey because I always used to think it was like watching junior hockey. Now with most teams having a lot of NHL players on their teams and using an NHL rink and NHL format makes it almost like an NHL Stanley Cup playoff series. The other thing I liked about this Olympic format is that there was no corporate advertising along the rink boards. Made the games feel like old time hockey. Oh and this 2010 Olympic round makes this 14 Gold medals for Canada. That's more then any country for any Olympics both Winter and Summer. The best part about this game earlier this afternoon was, we won it at home! I'm a happy man. Anyway that’s about all for now.

I'm having the mid week blahs

Anne was compelled to go out around 3pm too get KFC. For this she needed my bus pas. She called about 3:43pm as I was trying to finish up my book. I was to meet her outside and like a relay race she was to transfer my bus pass. At the crosswalk set of lights. There was her bus. We waved. I was getting a bit pissed off at this time. Then my bus came and she was at the light’s across the street. Another bus was coming by. I was holding my breath for the light to change, other wise I’d be waiting for a good. The light changed just as the bus was at the light. So here comes Anne strolling along oblivious to everything. I grabbed my bus pass in her hand and almost got run over by the damn thing. I love my wife but she can be so lame sometimes.

So that was what basically put me off for the evening. That and I sat beside another loud person. Most of these loud people are women. Never fails. I struggled all night to get $350 and was the last to get on the board with a credit card sale for $10 and my last sale for $30 also a credit card sale. By about 8pm my blood sugar level was dropping. I was struggling and even the empty pop cans were in short supply.

Alright, I think I finally narrowed my MP3 media players down to two models. I can get both of these locally. The first one is the Coby 4Gb touch screen the second is the Hip Street 8Gb touch screen. Both of these players have an external speaker and supports an SD card slot and can be picked up locally for under $100. The MP3 player is my first short term goal. Coast to Coast Streamlink my second. This way we can get the show and put the good ones on the media card and listen to on the weekends when we have more time.

Also I finished reading “Science Fiction Best of the year 2006” when I got home this evening shortly before 11pm. I liked this anthology but the stories could have been more evenly dispersed. Most of the better ones were near the end of the book.

Review Summary: Science Fiction “Best of the year, 2006 edition” A collection of Science fiction stories by some of the biggest names in the genre.

My Rating: 6.5/10

Pros: 6/15 of these stories were good or better, with 4 of them being Excellent. “The Policeman’s daughter” was the best of the bunch

Cons: Too many mediocre stories in this collection by writers that could have provided better stories then they did. There were some long stories in here as well, which were long and uninspiring. Pacing of the stories was poorly handled. I would have paced the better stories early in the book or at least spaced them out a little better then they were

Bottom line: This is a fine anthology of some good Science Fiction stories. It took me longer then I wanted to get into this book because the stories started off to be so lame. Things didn’t start picking up until about halfway through the book, then after Will MCCarthy’s story was I excited about what else lay ahead.

Would I recommend this book? Yes despite the way the material was presented, it’s still a pretty good offering.

So now I’m just beginning to read Elizabeth Bears Dust. It goes up the queue to currently reading. I hope to finish this by at least March 15th.

Today is day 13 of the winter Olympics. I’m really going to miss it. Mainly because it’s so historic for my country in many ways. Mainly because it was the first time our athletes won gold at home. Second because Wayne Gretzky got to light the external Olympic torch and because it’s being held in my home city. Where I’m from not where I live. Also this Olympics has opened my eyes up to some different kinds of sport. I like snowboarding and cross skiing now and I have a new respect for figure skating. Anyway, that’s all for now.

There's a photo of the book cover of the above "review" over there on my website

I love weekends

I had a tough time getting out of here this morning but I got downtown and hooked up with Dwain, a fellow I work with a few years younger then me. We met little James as well, on our into Tim’s. Yes they had hash browns. I got my breakfast and walked over with the guys to the office. Sure enough we were locked out but one of the team India came along with a key. I ate my breakfast but I forgot my coffee so I decided to move near the other end. It was slow getting started and I didn’t get my first sale until almost 45 minutes into the shift. My first sale was a credit card sale. I did alright the first half but it was after break that I got bogged down with too many dropped calls and F3’s. In the late second half things got better. Actually in the 2nd shift I did really well getting 2 credit card sales and I ended up with a total of $810 but no bonus money.

I had a great evening as I needed a few hours by myself. I could have had a nap as well and I don’t think I’d need a nap this evening.

Tomorrow Day 10 of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics is Team Canada/USA men’s hockey and I’m going to be watching that. Should be a good one.

Nobody won the $42M Lotto Max last night so it goes to $50 and I’m going to get myself a ticket. I got one number. Somebody won the $7.6M 6/49. I was going to get a ticket but the Redimart at Clairview was closed when I was going through the lower concourse.

I didn’t get a book at Audrey’s this weekend but I’ll get my 4th book next Friday. I’m looking at dipping my hand into Ebay/Pay Pal in the books category as I’ve got my eye on the old Piers Anthony “Cluster” series. Piers Anthony has always been one of my favorite authors.

I’m not a big paranormal fan but I do have the first 2 Jill Kismet novels by Lilith Saintcrow. There is a 3rd and 4th installment in this series out. I like the cover art of this series. The reason why I mention Lilith Saintcrow is because over there at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, they reviewed one of the Kitty Norville’s series: “Kitty Raises Hell.” I’m considering ordering the an Omnibus of this series. The Kitty series and the Kismet series in some ways cover about the same ground. After I read Karen Traviss’s Wes’ Har series, I’m going to read the Jill Kismet series. Or at least try to.

The first hour of Coast this evening is like this: UFO expert Nick Pope will comment on the newly-released UFO files from the British Ministry of Defense. The 2nd hour is another soft topic. Tomorrow George Knapp has a UFO Stargate kind of show. Good stuff.

I’m really enjoying following and watching the Vancouver 2010 winter Olympics. I’ve never been a fan before. The one in Calgary in 1988 kind of turned me off but this one if Vancouver I like.

Later I might play a bit of Runequest. I’m trying to develop my level 2 cooking skills. As one of my main objective. Now I got a free bronze sword but no armor or anything.

As I was on the bus at Clairview yesterday afternoon I was considering going over to Century Casino and checking out the black jack tables but I was really tired going through the doors. I’ve never been in there yet. I pass by there every day. Maybe when I have some more cash to work with. What I have on hand is going right to the bank on Monday.

Lately I’ve been using the Real player SP media player which lets me download YouTube videos. I’ve got something like 2,500 files. I’ve been noticing though lately a large red X on many of my downloaded files. The original files are still there and the file size is the same, so I can’t figure out why the files disappear on me. Anyways that’s about all for now.

It's getting busy now

I had a pretty good night on the job as I pulled in $580 and $70 cards and of course I got a whack of empties to take home.

Weather wise it was mild on the way into work. About -6. On the way home it was foggy and around -3. As far as winters go, the ‘09-’10 has been really good.

Yeah Canada! We won another Gold, this time in the women’s snowboarding. What really pisses me off are all these masked protesters taking objects and smashing them through windows of businesses downtown. Most of them are from out of the country and if caught should be charged for terrorism, the bastards.

I managed to play a little Runescape and figured out how to equip my character sword. What I like about this game is that it saves where you left off. To pay for a members account is $60/year. I think I’m going to like this game. Apparently these are tutorials I’m about to play before they get into the campaign game.

Ok I’m off to bed and listen to a bit of Coast. I’m about ready to finish another story in SF ‘06: “The Inn at Mount Either.” By James van Pelt. I’m enjoying this one. So far I rate this an 9/10. I really enjoyed this story.

I had a pretty good night on the job as I pulled in $580 and $70 cards and of course I got a whack of empties to take home.

Weather wise it was mild on the way into work. About -6. On the way home it was foggy and around -3. As far as winters go, the ‘09-’10 has been really good.

Yeah Canada! We won another Gold, this time in the women’s snowboarding. What really pisses me off are all these masked protesters taking objects and smashing them through windows of businesses downtown. Most of them are from out of the country and if caught should be charged for terrorism, the bastards.

I managed to play a little Runescape and figured out how to equip my character sword. What I like about this game is that it saves where you left off. To pay for a members account is $60/year. I think I’m going to like this game. Apparently these are tutorials I’m about to play before they get into the campaign game.

Ok I’m off to bed and listen to a bit of Coast. I’m about ready to finish another story in SF ‘06: “The Inn at Mount Either.” By James van Pelt. I’m enjoying this one. So far I rate this an 9/10. I really enjoyed this story.

***

I slept later then I intended today but I needed the sleep. I’ve been so tired lately. I probably could have slept until 2pm today.

Lately I’ve been trying to do some research into a local 500 Kilovolt power Heartland transmission project just NW of Edmonton. It’s an overhead high voltage line stretching from lake Wabamun to Fort Saskatchewan and is the largest power line of it’s kind here in Alberta. It’s going to provide about 2,000 jobs for people. The towers are going to be 60 high and 80 meters in width. These overhead power lines look ugly and there is some evidence that they make people living near them sick. Local residences are not against having the benefits of the power, they just don’t want it above line. It’s not that hard to do to burry the cables underground. You dig a trench and plant the cables. How much does that cost? The Province etc says burying the project under ground will and 5-8 times the cost of the project. Huh? You get several backhoe’s together and you got the trench done in a month. More on this later. The project apparently is supposed to cost $350 million and proponents of the project say to build the line underground would cost about $2 billion. What to get the cable and dig a trench? Also why not put in wind turbines instead? wouldn’t that generate equal amount of power?

I slept later then I intended today but I needed the sleep. I’ve been so tired lately. I probably could have slept until 2pm today.

I wanted to go in for this afternoon but I was kind of wiped out. I’m going to try for 1 extra shift/week and build up to two. We’re all caught up in our February rent. We’re now working for March. With the extra shift, and a full day Saturday gives me 28.5 hours. Another shift would give 31 hours. Anyway, that's about all for now.

I love Family Day Weekends

Couple of days off here. I was invited to come down for extra hours from 11am-7pm for time and a half but that‘s a long day. I‘m not quite used to that yet. I said, I‘d try and make it down but I kind of reneged on it about 4pm yesterday afternoon.

Over the past couple of weeks I‘ve been researching various Personal Media Players. Or PMP’s as they‘re called. I‘m looking for: Wi-Fi, external speaker, removable memory/media card slot. I’ve looked at Coby, Iriver, Zen, The Archos 5, and the Itouch and a lot of others. So far the Archos 5 is the best. I can get the 160Gb version for $315. But I got to go to Best Buy to get one and the easiest BB for me to get to is the one on 99th Ave and 19th st. As of April 24th that is. That’s when ETS is opening up it’s next LRT station at Southgate. If I’m going to BB for the Archos I may as well go there and get my laptop fixed up and have the Geeks look at removing the bug. I can accomplish both in the same trip. I kind of like the Itouch as well but I don’t like the fact that I have no removable memory. The Itouch 65Gb is nice but over priced. When I’m at BB getting the laptop fixed up I’ll un box the Archos and get it ready. Make sure I don’t take home a lemon.

Over there at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist they had another book give-a-way, which I of course entered. Pat usually has 2-3 book give-a-ways each month.

The other day I touched briefly on Coast to Coast’s Streemlink. I also discovered our local radio station that carries the show has something called “Audio vault.” They have the whole day on file for up to 30 days. Including Coast. The only thing is, the audio content isn’t all that great. The weekend shows at Coast are pretty boring. There are other shows similar to Coast like Jeff Rense, Laura Lee etc. I like her show and even Whitley Strieber’s Dreamland. All these are great shows.

Even though yesterday was Valentine’s day the Oiler faithful were not getting any love from the Copper & Blue last night. Anaheim 7 Edmonton 3. I like the way Ryan Potulny is playing though. He’s got his 14th and if he keeps going like he has been, He could get 20 goals this year.

I’ve been wanting to try out Runescape this weekend and I think I might open an account and try it out. Jessie from work says he’s got a paid an account and he plays it all the time. The map looks very extensive. I recall all the fun I had playing “Well of Souls” some years ago.

Anne went out to the manning Safeway just up the road here and looked around for me. She found out where Happy Harbor comic/games store is: A few doors down from the bank. That’s good to know. She says the #182 stops off right there but the only thing is, they play Heroclix on Sundays.

Tonight because it’s a rare Monday night off, I get to watch Monday night Raw at the earlier time. But Anne usually likes to watch it with me so I’ll be leaving it for later when she comes home from work.

And finally, over there at SF Signal they have a movie review of the latest Wolfman movie. The review doesn’t look that good. Personally this kind of stuff doesn’t appeal to me at all. Anyway, that’s all for now.

I had a full day today.

desktop and I took the liberty trying to fix my laptop and I was able to get into safe mode but I cant utilize wifi in safe mode. This means I need to call Shaw and get my laptop calibrated for the Internet. Pain in the ass.

I had a pretty decen day on the job almost had somebody trying to put words in my mouth thinking I'm the Police. I quickly made sure they knew I wasn't. Other then that though I did pretty good for the first half. I ended up with $885 and 5 cards for a $10 bonus on my nect pay check.

Gawd, Coast has another boring show on this evening. Exotic foods. Please get me Streamlink. We miss so many good Coast shows during the week, we're stuck with this crap. It must be some kind of plot to get listeners to sign up for Coast that don't get a chance to hear all the good stuff during the week. Monday they have a Valentines day show. On Tuesday an FBI show and Wednesday a Stargate type show. Now Wednesday's show would be perfect for this evening and Sunday when Ian has his soft shows in.

Around the Blogsphere: Ok, Pat from Pat's Fantasy Hotlist is over there in Thialand. He had short post about Joe Abercrombie's latest "The last Argument of Kings." Looks pretty good. At SF Signal they're posting a list of the contents in David G. Hartwell/Kathryn Cramer's Years best SF 15. I prefer my anthologies to be in Trade although I have a few of these in MMP editions.SF Signal also has a review of Alison Sinclair's Darkborn, which has me intrigued and finally Elizabeth Bear is talking about the writing life and Holly Lisle is talking about why she hasn;t posted any Blog enteries lately. Anyway, that's all from me, for now.

Middle of the week blahs

at work was pretty good. I got the end dialer on the other side. I had over $200 by the first hour and they moved me over to the big taps. Shortly after break I got a $300 credit card sale and by the end of the night I ended up $740 and $405 on card for a $17.50 bonus. Plus a whack of empties to take home.

Lately over there at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist I've been going crazy with entering his book give-a-way contest since winning that signed copy of that Alastair Reynolds hardcover last December. This year I'm determined to win again. Also in keeping with the Blogging theme, over there at Holy Lisle's site "Pocket full of words" she's got a cool contest going, on how you could be a character in her book. This is a great idea and unless I'm missing something, I wonder why other SFF writers don't do this for their fans. it's another way to pay forward.

Oh, I had a bet going with Jerry with my $4 I owed him at a double or nothing on the line. Thank God it wasn't the Oiler's playing tonight. I picked Ottawa Sens over Calgary. I won my double or nothing so I owe nothing. Love it.

Earlier I was listening to some good old Third Wave Ska. I discovered "Undercover Ska." These guys are awesome. I believe from the Bay area. Good stuff.

I got an email from my Lodge's WM yesterday about a brother that's in the Royal Alex hospital. The more senior Lodge officers in my Lodge are always encouraging the brethren to visit sick brothers in the hospital etc. I'd like to do more of this myself, visiting sick brethren in our Lodge. It spreads good cheer and friendship. The thing holding me back from doing this is I work evenings. but if I get any advance notice and find a brother in the hospital and there are brothers going out to visit, I'm going to ask if I can tag along. This is one of the main aspects of Masonic charity I really need to do more sick and visiting. Anyway, that's all for now.