Note to self:

Rant someday on the following...

- How America (Yes all of us) have such a lame attitude towards the world and gets so caught up in our little stupid fights...

[Click to read the full post]

Why must things be great and suck at the same time?

I think being sick is just like an amplifier for all lifes miseries and a damper on all fun.

Bah! [Click to read the full post]

Wow - time flies when you get busy (Wonderful words of wisdom eh?)

Christmas came and went in a big blur. Lots of last minute shopping watching the Christmas "cheer" and the horn honking in the parking lots as everyone rushed to get their last gifts lol

I had all my family over for Christmas and it was a big first - noone sick this year so I just knew that couldn't be. Lucky me woke up feeling aweful Christmas morning with a brutal sore throat and sinus infection. YAY! :D

So I'm still fighting it off but I'm slowing winning!

It seems this is going to be the week of catching up with all my friends and meeting new people. Going out for lunch and dinner each day. Each meal getting progressively less expensive and with 'just a water' as the funds dry up.

For many years I have had a mailing list Joke A Whenever. Every Christmas I would send out the same 'jokeless' mailing to everyone. Every time I got flooded with many thanks and a few bitter remarks.

In memory of JokeAWhenever and the days when email could be sent without being flagged as spam by stupid AOL users I've included the mailing in the "Read More" section... [Click to read the full post]

Before I ramble about my day I need your ideas :)

Whats a good name or word that gives the impression of confidence or ability to do a good job. Or that displays honesty, integrity etc?

Just post in the comments :)

--
Don't you just love those people who sing to the christmas carols in the store? I had to stop and get some food last minute for my mom. The lady in the aisle was singing outloud and talking to herself. This wasn't a normal muttering either - it was loud. I got this vision in my head like in musicals where everyone panicking in the aisle would suddenly start dancing and singing along all choreographed.

I think that disturbed me enough for me to leave asap :p

Well I finally got my first bit of shopping done tonight :)

Just got a call from my friend Stephen - he literally got run over by a transport truck. He's Ok though :)

Sitting in the intersection the truck decided it would change lanes even though he was there. He laid on the horm but the guy drove up onto his car. The wheels went up on the back of the front left tire and right up on top before the driver happened to noticed his truck was 3 ft off the ground. LOL - some people shouldn't be allowed to drive!

The funny thing - it was a rental car - his car is in the shop getting fixed.

Everyone seems to enjoy leaving comments here so comment away!

What a 24 hours. Last night I worked late on a site and got up at a decent hour to get back on it this morning. Just as I opened my eyes I hear a click and the power went out. Just when I had finally got my phone line fixed (after Bell missed the first appointment - probably because of the weather (-25) and I had finally got that back and working).

So it was the usual - get up .. shut the computer down into hibernate mode once the power wasn't going to rush back own. Then wait it out - unable to take a shower even as the power is out = no pump.

Bah - what a morning. When it came on and I started my day it was tweak after tweak trying to get oscommerce to work right, and I've still got a pile of other work to complete as well!

Hope everyone elses day is better!

Oh - I still haven't started my shopping yet :)

- Ed

Get your mind outta the gutter!

For my last exam, instead of bringing some strong alcohol with me (I don't drink) I brought my favorite drink instead - Bawls Guarana


Since its so nice when its chilled I decided to leave it in my car during the exam. I came out to find it had seperated and frozen. I figured I'd let it melt and drink it later.

Each day has been getting colder. That was - 5 or -9 or so. This morning it was about -15 and I came out to find that the bottle had changed - the cap had blown off and the ice had worked its way out leaving a column of ice that was slowly growing up. I had that ice for my morning snack :)

Each time today I"ve come out to my car its moved a bit and grown. Tonight on the way home (-25 or so) it started spurting and spraying gas and liquid like a fountain. At first I thought something was wrong with my car but I figured it out and enjoyed the drink!

I'm just glad I never got pulled over - someone my age driving at 12:30am with a cell phone in one hand and taking frequent swigs from a blue 'bottle' driving with my knees :p

Good thing it was cold and the cops weren't in a huge rush to check all cars out!

What a 'relaxing' day. My first day of break (well 2nd to be technical) and I'm exhausted and busy all at once. I think I heard from at least four of my clients today with ugent requests that I needed to do. Just finally finished installing, debugging or whatever else was needed and now its time to take a breath, relax and get back to work.

Hopefully I can still keep this blog up and running - even though it seems to be a place of blog warfare - with awesome posters like Jenny putting encouragin comments and people like Veronica leaving bitter subtle quotes.

No MORE PICKLES FOR VER! ... I might have to take way her sour patch kids too!

What do you do?


(and no... I haven't started my Christmas shopping yet!)

Christmas time stress relief... recommended in all the latest psychological
texts. The funny thing is that it really works.

1. Picture yourself near a stream.

2. Birds are softly chirping in the cool mountain air.

3. No one but you knows your secret place.

4. You are in total seclusion from the hectic place called "the world"

5. The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of
serenity.

6. Bubbles slowly float to the surface creating a gentle gurgling sound.

7. The water is crystal clear.

8. You can easily make out the face of the person you're holding
underwater.

My skills aren't just limited to the duct tape line of clothing. I make my own dress shirts as well...

Once its painted the strips are removed. Its made with construction road paint - brilliant reflective paint.

Now when people look at me and quickly look away I just blame it on the shirt :)

Jer just messaged me to let me know that CTV news had a story about a company that was starting to sell duct tape clothing. I just wanted to publically make claim to the concept. I created a pair back in '99 for my own use when at camp. It was to be created into a full tux but when my Vice-principal got wind of my plans to wear it to the formal graduation I got a strict (yell) on how I had better not wear it or else!

Pictures can be found in the extended portion: [Click to read the full post]

Cam sent me this link - its hilarious. I've uploaded to my site as i don't have the original source to link to.

I dare you to put this on repeat for 10 mins and not get it stuck in your head :)

This is the new Hampster Dance!
The Banana Phone Song

Speaking of Banana..
Back in high school my friend Pete and I were bitter and up late studying for a big test for this english teacher that was really strict and most students like too much (we only appreciated her after it all). Her name: Mrs. Rayburn.

Anyhow - after a strange turn of events I ended up emailing the late night guy on the radio and scaring the daylights out of him (thats another story for those that are curious). We got emailing back and forth and so one night he did me a favour and did the ultimate for us in return :)
Punch Andrews on Mix 99.9 Late Nights - The Banana Song (Sweet revenge).

I think that made our night and day for a week!

Punch if you ever read this - you rock!

I had just picked up a check from one of my clients today (they share a building with a senior's center). I came outside the door and was just about to cross the lane to my car only to catch this car out of the corner of my eye - going about 70 km/hr. This was no sports car - just an old beater car. I quickly jumped back to the curb cursing high school kid drivers in my mind when the car zipped past and this little old lady (missing only the straw hat) grinned and waved at me!

What nerve!

I guess I shouldn't expect as much when my own (almost senior) mother got pulled over for 120 in an 80. Lucky for her the sweet smile and white hair worked wonders :)

Kinda like the time the SWAT team got called to my house....

I didn't feel like bothering to create one of those dynamic image scripts to use so I've just required users to follow some simple instructions when adding comments. Simply change the text to say "nospam" (all lowercase with no quotes) and enjoy!

So - start posting your comments :)

For those of you finding yourself here from my MSN name (great marketing tool isn't it?). I'm not picking on the 4 or so people on my list that just recently started a blog once exams started cause I did the same lol.

Hurrah for all of us procrastinators that had the great idea of starting a blog to vent and release our anger against the school establishment that thinks stress and pressure is the best way to see what we truly learnt in the classroom.

I'm sorry but stress and pressure only belong in the mat sci and fluids labs..

2 More exams to go. What a waste of a week - sitting awaiting the last loss of a friday night for a semester to finally write the last two exams in the last possible exam slot the school has. What a jip!

Engineering Digital Sytems Design - Not such a bad course a few killer concepts I still have to master but I'm getting there :)

Engineering Systems Analysis - Yup.. I gotta get working on that.

At least I've got worked lined up already for the break so I can start climbing out of this hole I've created for myself. Who knows maybe I can break even before the next tuition payment comes do..

Speaking of which...*goes to look* Meh - I've got until Jan 17th before its late :)

To the Online Casino's that decided to spam my site - I've fixed it now. The comment entry was left wide open to the public but I've locked it down so I don't have to deal with all that nonsense. The first time it was humourous - someone had found a new domain only minutes after google finally made it and they had left the first spam.

Its the ever evolving internet we live in I guess. Someday I'll implement a comment scheme that uses the generated images to check for a human user so that a machine cannot read what it says.

Bah stupid spammers... "No I will not eat green eggs and SPAM!"

Woke up this morning to find the internet working great (ok well.. more like 12pm but close enough!).

Only a few minutes later I found that I couldnt' connect to anything at all. Kinda frustrating when your trying to study and can't connect to anything online lol. Oh well...

Turns out my ISP didn't bother to inform or post anything on their site when they removed their DNS servers and set some up on a different IP range.

Would have been nice to be informed of these things....

Then again.. Not everyone has more than 1 internal dedicated webserver and DNS server...

Maybe I'm just a little bit weird.

Man I hurt - We drywalled all the ceilings (spare one or two sheets) in the new addition today. Sorry - no pics yet but someday I'll post something lol.

Got woken up at 8ish and we worked until 10:45 or so PM as we had rented a lift for the day.

Wasn't a 'pleasant' day at all LOL

For those of your wondering how construction is coming along - we are just finishing up the last of the insulation. Today is hopefully the last day of putting up vapor barrier and then its time for the inspector to pass everything so we can get the drywall up starting this coming saturday! W00t

Here's a picture of the outside of the house:

Just woke up after a nice sleep into 12pm :D Had my Differential Equations exam last night - According to my calculations depending on how nice they are I should get somewhere between 50 and 75% on the final which hopefully means I can pass the course :D

I would have written yesterday but I promised myself that Diffy Q's was not a good exam to actively procrastinate for.

Although the recent spam on the Material Science listserv has gotton to a hilarious level so I wrote a poem for it :)

You can find it along with images in the extended part of those blog entry.

- Ed
[Click to read the full post]

If you want to read what I had posted here earlier - with regards to that night you'll have to contact me directly :)

Wow - what a night. Never had such a messed up sleep like that before. You're going to have to ask me in person for an explanation on that one, and after that only some will ever hear the story!

I was brought up believing Sunday's to be a 'day of rest' or something like that - not sure now-a-days. I've got exams starting tommorrow, and many more things to do. An ever growing pile of computers to fix, and just today a request for a new computer system.

Its funny the things we do to procrastinate.. things like starting discountgeek.com :)

This is one of those generic first post post's all blogs seem to have. I guess I'd better put one too!

Dicountgeek.com is a domain name I picked up the other day in hopes of someday turning it into an online marketplace for everything geek. That means custom geekwear, cheap computer parts and other great supplies.

I hope to post thoughts on life, vents, news and more relating to my life and my work.

I currently do a fair bit of contract webdesign and web development for my own company SwitchFoot Design.

One of my past ventures that still fairly well know:
Joke A Whenever, and online source and mailing list (or what was) for jokes and more.