chuma.org went over 11000 hits yesterday.
The presentation got out early, so I’ve got time to write. About an hour, actually 😛
Sandy’s having a great time so far, which makes me happy. Her and Melissa had a great time shopping yesterday. It’s good, because they haven’t seen each other in so long. On the way home last night we traipsed around a bit on the bus to buy some food, and Tom cooked a nice dinner for us. Melissa said he was on his “best behaviour.” 🙂 Didn’t do much after that; just hung out and vegged. I realized today that I could have been at the reception instead, but oh well. I had already missed most of it by the time we were finished dinner.
Today is a full day at OLS. Ran into an old co-worker over lunch, and wandered around the Rideau Centre trying to find that darn thing, which I finally found. Remembered to reserve tickets for the art gallery tomorrow. Called Stany, but he was busy fixing someone’s servers. Hopefully he calls before Sandy and I go out for dinner, or maybe I’ll meet up with him tomorrow.
Well, we made it in one piece to Ottawa. Yesterday had to take the TTC to Union station, and then jump on the Via for about five hours, and the train was about half an hour late. Melissa met us at the train station, and we took a cab back to her place. It’s a pretty nice little apartment, and it’s not too bad to get to downtown on the bus.
An aside about the Ottawa-Carleton transportation system, or “OC Transpo”. The system is different in a number of ways from Toronto and Guelph. First of all, there is a semi-tiered fare system. There’s only one kind of bus ticket, which are 85c each. For an adult on most routes, you need two of these tickets. Children only need one. There are also some premium routes that require three tickets. Transfers seem to be the same as Toronto (get one where you pay your fare, transfer as many times as you want) except that transfers in Ottawa are all timestamped (they’re printed with a little thermal printer on every bus) with the time they are valid until. I guess this means that (unlike Toronto) you can get away with making a stop along a route, but only within a reasonable, enforced time. In Toronto transfer times aren’t enforced at all, and are printed with th time you got them. On the bus today, there were two transit police checking everyone’s transfers or bus passes; I’ve never seen that in Toronto, ever. Second difference: they have only buses, but there is a main bus route, called the Transitway, that runs across the city. For the most part, it’s a road dedicated to buses and other transit vehicles. There are predetermined stops along the way, kind of like the subway in Toronto. It’s an interesting idea, and was probably way cheaper to build than a subway, is a lot more flexible, and they can use any bus on it if need be, and other bus routes can get on and off it and coexist with the main Transitway routes that just run along it exclusively.
So we figured out the bus system, which is good, because cabs here are bloody expensive. Yesterday Sandy and I ventured downtown, I registered for OLS, and we wandered generally around the Rideau Centre and did some shopping. Came back to Melissa’s and talked and drank the night away. Melissa’s a pretty cool person, and being one of Sandy’s closest friends, I had to get her approval (which I did :). Melissa’s boyfriend Tom is alright too, a little rough around the edges, but they make a pretty good couple.
Today was my first day at OLS. I went to two presentations, which were pretty good, but missed the third when I sat down to do e-mail and lost track of the time completely. It feels a little different this year: most of the guys I hung out with last year aren’t here (probably because andover.net didn’t want to pay their way), and I haven’t been recognized by any acquaintances I made last year, nor have I approached any of them. There’s a few guys here from Guelph but I don’t know them that well, and I ran into an old friend from UTS. Still have to find Stany. Oh well. Everything just seems to have a bit of a different feel than last year: the talks don’t seem to be that interesting, the atmosphere is just generally different: more reserved. There are fewer parties being thrown than last year, probably due to the current tech market depression. I’ve already pretty much decided not to register for next year. Ho-hum.
Gotta run and meet Sandy and Melissa now. More tomorrow.
Last week was bloody hectic and insanely crazy at work, but we got Maptuit 1.3 out the door. It was pretty stressful at times, but it was a good kind of stress: I think because everyone knew what they were working towards and that the work was not going to be in vain. After I (finally) left work on Friday, I was kind of pissed at all the silly bugs we found at the last possible second, but later on I had a real sense of accomplishment. It felt great.
Sandy bought me a toy to cheer me up: a Bender figurine (almost like that one, but mine comes with “Olde Fortran” malt liquor). Sometimes I feel like sharing Bender’s motto.
Tomorrow we are leaving for Ottawa. Woohoo trip fun!
lately has been blah. not depressing, just… blah. work is busy as heck. play is at a minimum; trying to motivate myself to write code and watch anime, both to no avail. very tired lately; should get more sleep. hopefully next week in Ottawa will snap me out of it, or Sandy will give me a swift kick in the nuts to snap me out of it.
Now, what should I eat for lunch?
After thinking about it for a while, finally dug out my Hendrix CDs. Yay.
I had an awesome weekend, it being my birthday on Saturday and all. Jor, thanks for the PoE card; Tony, thanks for the LEGO; and Emily, thanks for the six LEGO sets 🙂 It was great seeing all of my friends out and having a good time, I haven’t done that in a while.
Saw A.I. last night. I liked it, but I know people who didn’t. A lot of the pleasure I got out of it was from considering the actions of the characters and the ethical and moral problems that ooze from the pores of the film. I agree with people who say that the last half-hour was probably unnecessary. I could almost picture Spielberg struggling over the ending, repeating to himself over and over “Must…make…happy…ending!”
What else… oh. Added more Newton ads. Bought myself a birthday present: The Killer and Hard-Boiled on DVD.
Work was sloooow. I can’t seem to stay awake. Must go to Guelph, see Sandy, see friends at pub tomorrow, have good time on birthday. Yes.
Reading I’ve been doing bu haven’t mentioned in a while:
Super-Toys was interesting. I haven’t seen A.I. yet (tomorrow!), but I already know enough of the plot to see the resembelance between the story and the movie.
Crome Yellow was interesting. It’s much lighter than Brave New World, probably Huxley’s most famous book, but contains similar elements – characters talk about theories and ideas about society, while the protagonist struggles to fit in with proper English society types. I might need to reread this one in a few months.
From the Apocalypse Watch section in today’s Chrominance:
…first on the list is the latest Sunny Delight advertising campaign. Maybe you’ve seen this, or maybe it’s a Canada only campaign; it involves an Austin-Powers-MiniMe-like villain scheming to harness the power of the California Sun. Ooops, too late, because Sunny D’s already done it!
What I’d like to add is this: Sunny Delight has been targeting their advertising for years to specific age groups in order to bombard one particular generation, in the hopes that they started using the product at an early age and keep using it as they grow up. If you think about old Sunny D ads, you’ll notice that they started by targeting young (less that 12) children (and their parents), then went for the more independant 12-18 year group, and now seemed to be targeting 18-24 year olds – until this putrid ad came out.
In my own humble opinion, another sign of the coming apocalypse is that Kraft Pizza commercias are starting to become almost carbon-copies of every single terrible commercial that McCain’s has made in the past 20 years.
AOL users who can’t follow instructions e-mailed to them: go away.
Yesterday was hot. Really hot. In the morning, a young woman fainted on my subway car. This past lunch hour I sweated down while running around getting all of the necessary pieces to get an ISIC card and a train ticket (photo, change for photo booth, visit TravelCuts, buy train ticket). And I had to pay $16 for the card which would have been free if I had gotten it in Guelph. Oh well. I also just figured out that if I buy a six-pack of Toronto-Guelph return tickets from VIA, the student discount is half off and it’s way cheaper than Greyhound. So I just did that. Yay.